Inside My Stay in a Private Immigration Prison | Yosvani Gacita Negrin
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But Yogi, thanks so much for coming. Welcome to Locked In, brother. And thank you for the sweatshirt, man. I want you to plug in the name of your podcast and what you hooked us up with here today. This thing is nice, well built. Yeah, I didn't know what size you were, but I figured you were, I've heard people say that you're bigger in real person. So I got you a large. Perfect. The podcast is called Have Faith, Show Love, Give Hope. I'm from Toledo, Ohio. So I promote,

I promote kind of like, I believe in Jesus Christ, but my thing is to have faith and show, have faith, that's me, show love and give hope. Show love by having guests on so they can tell their story and something we say can maybe give hope to the next person and kind of doing the same thing you're doing. You know, you're giving people the opportunity to sit down every week, share their story and

It's kind of a beautiful thing what you're doing. And a lot of people probably don't realize it, but, you know, us podcasters, we kind of like, it's almost like a little therapy session. We help people get a lot of this stuff out and it creates a beautiful environment. And I don't know, it's just something that I really like to do. Yeah, I'm trying my best to make it mutually beneficial, you know, for everyone that comes on the show. That's why I always try to plug in, you know, their merch or their podcast or their

book, like in the beginning of the episode. And, um, you know, just, I'm thankful I have enough viewership where, you know, hopefully that translates over to some of my guests if it, if their story resonates, uh,

uh, with my audience if they like that. And you know, not every episode is going to be for everyone as from an audience perspective, there might be a guest you really relate to and you like listening to, and there might be another guest that just drives you crazy, you know, and it's not for you. So that's why I put so much content out and get those stories out there. Um, but I appreciate the kind words and I know you're a supporter. You got our merch. I was going to send it to you and you're like, nah, I got you brother. Yeah. Yeah.

But whenever I have like a guest that asks for their merch, I happily, you know, send it to them. And I always see you commenting, I think on Facebook. Yeah. I'm more, I'd be on Facebook more. Yeah. Everyone's like on their own platform. You got the Facebook fans, you got the TikTok, you got the Instagram, you got the YouTube, everyone's different. And then obviously like Spotify and app,

Yeah. You grew up on TikTok, right? Yeah. TikTok. And I'd say Facebook, a lot of people know me from, from a view perspective. And then obviously YouTube, I have a lot of views and, you know, I think we're approaching like 200 million views and the subscribers and stuff. So, but I started just,

you know, where you're starting now and where so many people that come on the show who have podcasts started as well too. Absolutely. But I never forget where I started, you know, that's why I try to help out people as much as I can, you know, whenever I can. I'm pretty starstruck because like I watch your podcast all the time and, you know, I'm a podcaster so,

people, when they come to mind, they were like, Oh man, like this is awesome. So I feel like, I feel like that, like, this is awesome getting to meet you. And, you know, and I think that everything you're doing is amazing. I like how you, uh, you got different types of people on and stuff like that. And, uh, one thing I've always wanted to ask you, and there's a question that I've always wanted to ask you is, um,

is if like how you got locked in right with Ian Bick, but your YouTube is called Ian Bick. And then you all, you have different, what was your mindset about that? Having different shows on one platform? So, um, I went like most people, it's common sense to kind of just, you start a business, uh, or a podcast in this case, uh, you make a new page for it. So you would have like a separate YouTube, a separate Instagram, a separate Facebook. But

but I was like, you know, what if I just put everything in one? I already had like a base of followers. I had a few thousand friends on Facebook and like 5,000 Instagram followers. So that was my base. Um, why change that up? Why go start a brand new page and work from the way up? So, uh, I just changed. I just kept everything in BIC, you know, cause locked in with Ian BIC, Ian BIC is locked in, locked in is Ian BIC. So I just, I kept it in the road with it. Uh,

and most people won't tell you to do that. And most people don't do that because they want to keep it separate. But I mean, it just, that's the platform I built using my name. I'm the brand, you know, in a way. So that's why I did it that way. Yeah. I think it's amazing. Cause my podcast at first it was called big Yogi's garage. Then I changed the name to have faith, show love, give hope. Cause my life changed. I met Jesus, my life changed. You know, so I have a whole story about that. But yeah,

Like, I also want to do like a podcast in Spanish with somebody one day. I also want to kind of like how you do the the cook off shows. So I was thinking like maybe I should do something like where I'd make my platform my name and then have separate shows on it on the same platform because I don't want to create a whole nother YouTube for something in Spanish.

or a whole nother YouTube for like, you know, maybe I do something else, you know, on my platform. I want to kind of keep it in house. Yeah, absolutely. So where were you born? Where are you from? I was born in Cuba and I came, I came here when I was eight, about five or six months old.

I was a little tiny baby back in 1980, the Cuban government and the United States government made it like a treaty and they let all kinds of people come. There was 125,000 Cubans came. It's called the Mario Boatlift, Maria Boatlift. And I was part of that. I came as a little baby on a boat. My mom...

It was just me and my mom that came from Cuba. My mom was pregnant with my sister. And then my mom had also four other kids. So I'm the oldest of five. My dad wasn't in the picture because my dad had came from Cuba like a few months before by himself. So it was basically just me, my mom and my four brothers and sisters. I'm the oldest of five kids.

I was raised to like, kind of like just always to be like the big brother to protect her, you know, cause I was, you know, I was a big brother. So, and my family, we came from Cuba. So we, we ended up somehow living like in these, like back, back then when these people came, there were so many people that came, they were like these shelters underneath bridges and stuff, just like the movie Scarface when the Cubans came. But,

Then there, there was a bunch of church tents, right? So my grandma went to a church tent because my grandma was a Jehovah's Witness. And that church moved them to Toledo, Ohio, kind of sponsored the family. We got to Toledo, Ohio. It was my grandma, my grandpa. They had 14 kids, a whole bunch of grandkids. So it was like 30 something people. They helped them all move to Toledo, Ohio. And that's where we created our church.

are like basically our first things here in Toledo. My family is really big in Toledo. All my aunts are like church-going aunts. And then my uncles were running the streets, doing all of the stuff like in the 80s, back in the 80s. I was a young kid, but growing up,

I was around, my uncles all had money, everybody, they were kicking it. My grandpa was known, he was on the Blade. The Blade is like the newspaper, the Toledo Blade,

They were like they got caught like a big drug conspiracy when I was like nine years old. So everybody knew that like my family was like in this drug conspiracy type D. They ended up going to jail. That's kind of like the first time that I remember anything going on with prison and jail. I was always around that kind of stuff when I was 16, though.

When I was 16, like one of my cousins had came out of prison. And that's kind of when I got to start getting in the game myself. I wasn't selling drugs, but I was running things around, taking thing here, taking that here for, you know, for nothing, for like 100 bucks to go do this, 100 bucks to do that.

And then as time went on, I got deeper, deeper in it. One of my uncles wanted to like grow some cannabis. So we started growing cannabis and abandoned houses. We would buy like 5,000, even my cousins and my uncles, they want to buy like these houses, you know, and,

we would put like indoor girl operations inside of them because we knew people in Florida that were doing it. So we brought it to Toledo. Um, and then that lasted a few years, but a lot of, uh, my family was, uh, in and out of jail the whole time people were going in, going out, you know, and, um, we, uh,

about 16, that's when I started it. Then this is like leading up into like my 10, 20s, 30s. I've always been dealing with this. I've always had a job though. I've never, ever since I was 16, this whole time I'm working, I've always had jobs. I worked at a factory for like 10 years, forklift driving. I worked at all different kinds of little stuff, but I,

then eventually like one time, like some of my friends were asking me, Hey, can you get some for us? You know, can you get some drugs for us? And I was like, yeah, you know, I, I know people, you know, I know a lot of people. So I started getting drugs in front of them to people. No one was paying me. You know, I would just, I would get in front and I would from two people that would give me the money. I would give it back, you know, and I would make a couple of dollars. I was in the

I was never a good drug dealer. I never was the type of drug dealer to make a lot of money. I was doing it to help my friends out, to get them going, doing something.

And then eventually, like my cousin, the one that that I mainly like dealt with, he ended up passing away in a car accident. When he passed away, I was I had met this girl and I was living with this girl and her her brother was getting out of prison. Her brother was getting out of prison and she we had a spare bedroom and he he.

He got the spare bedroom. We let him live there. And then eventually he asked me if I could get some drugs. When I got him some drugs, what happened was I got him some drugs and then I didn't know, but eventually he somehow got caught, you know, and instead of going to jail or whatever, he started working with the cops and he ended up getting me and about like, I think it was like 17 of us caught up in this big Harris heroin indictment, you know, and, um,

There was like some people got caught with cocaine. Some people got caught with heroin, guns, money. So it kind of like bought it all into like this big drug conspiracy where it said we were all going to jail. Like the main, you know, the main thing was like 20 years. And as you know, but if you plead guilty to this, you know, you know how they do it. They give you like 20 different things. And then I ended up.

I ended up pleading guilty because the thing is, okay, at first I was like, nah, you know, I don't want to plead guilty right away. But at first it was like an eight ball, you know, like they were going to charge me with an eight ball. But somebody was talking like they had everybody, you know, in and out of, you know, courts and stuff. But they put me like, they put like another 24, 28 grams on my thing. So the lawyer's like, well, now they want to charge you with, it's either from one gram to a hundred grams or something like that. There's like a bracket in the feds.

And that was going to be like, you know, so many points or whatever. He's like, if I was you, I would plead guilty now before more people start talking. They start putting more drugs on you. You know what I mean? So I just I ended up pleading guilty. I ended up getting 36 months, you know,

I, uh, I, I got 36 months and then like, you know, the, I ended up going to immigration after that. Cause I wasn't born in the United States. So I ended up doing like, at the end of the day, it was like 31 months for good time, you know? Cause I got out with all my good time and then like six more months in immigration. But I went, I ended up going to, um,

I didn't go to the regular BOP like you guys. I went to an immigration, privately owned, geo group. It's called a BOP.

It's called Mo Shannon Valley. It's in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania. All immigrants. No one really talks English like that much besides the CEOs. And then some inmates speak English, but the majority of inmates are all speaking Spanish. You know, there's Russians, there's Italians, there's everybody from every single country besides United States and Puerto Rico. Other than that, there's like 90 something countries. And then I went there and I was really nervous because, you

Well, I mean, there's at first they I had to hold on. Let me tell you about before I get into the prison part. So I was out on bond. I was supposed to. You know, they gave me the three years. They clunked the, you know, the gaveling or three years in prison. I started smoking weed that day. I got out. I was supposed to turn myself in December 1st. I started smoking weed because I was like, fuck it. They gave me three years ago.

The couple of weeks later, the supervised release guy that I had, he calls me and he says, hey, Yogi, I need you to come down here and talk to me. And I'll say, well, I already got my day. I'm, you know, I'm getting turned in. I'm turning myself in on December 1st. And he was he wasn't having it. He wanted me to come in. He said if I didn't come in on the next Monday, he was going to send the marshals to come raid my mom's house and my sister's house and all that. So I turned so I ended up going Monday. I turned myself in. They they arrested me there.

that's the first time I ever really went to like, you know, prison, like this is jail, but you know, this is like the first time before it was just like a couple hours here and there. Even when I first got caught and he only went for like a few, a few hours and I got, I released, I got released. But, um, so I go to Toledo County jail. I was there like 15 days, a bunch of the people like they were in the case were there. They were like, Oh man, what's up? And you're talking about the case, a bunch of local people, you know, talking to them from there. Um,

They say, you know, bunk and junk is,

Boom, send me to, they put me on a sheriff's van, take me to a plane, Con Air, you know, we're all shackled, you know, prison clothes, walking like a little penguin up to the, you know, the airplane. It's all de-gutted inside, all metal, Con Air. We get in there. We don't know where we're going. I don't know where we're going. They don't explain nothing to us, you know.

Boom. We, we fly, we stop somewhere. All the marshals get out. They pick up, uh, Jared from subway. Jared Fogle. Yeah. Jared Fogle. They pick him up. They're like, everybody's yelling and they're like, Hey man, you know, saying all kinds of offensive things to him. And they're like, shut up, shut up. They, um, they put him in there.

You know, then we go to Oklahoma. We don't even know, but we're going to Oklahoma. Some people go right from the plane to the prison. Some other people have to go out. And I was one that had to go to another place called Grady County, Oklahoma. That's another county jail. That's where the Tiger King was. Like during COVID, you know, the Tiger King. I remember seeing that on there. He was talking, he was calling from there. So I was there at Grady County, Oklahoma.

from Grady County. I was there like 15 days, bought a bunch of commissary. You know how like the day you get the commissary, they're like, all right, you can pack up. So I had to give some of them my commissary. So I just found like the poorest guy, you know, like there was like a Puerto Rican guy. I was like, Puerto Rico here. He was like, thank you, bro. It was like $60. Gave him the commissary.

They take me on the same thing, bus back to Oklahoma from the Oklahoma prison on a plane to like somewhere in New York. I don't know where. We get out somewhere, either New York or Pennsylvania. Oh, at the airport? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's right. That's like an hour from your Stewart Air Force Base. Okay. So then they take me there, put me on a bus. There's a bunch of buses. One says GEO.

They're like, you're going on that one. So I already know. I kind of knew because my lawyer told me that I was going to go to a private prison. And he was like, oh, man, he was kind of worried. Like, these are the worst prisons, you know, all immigrants, this and that. Wait, so why would they say you could surrender and then all of a sudden call you to the supervisor release office?

Because I was supposed to surrender, but I also was supposed to keep in touch with him and go and drop every week. Oh, so you were bailing on him. Yeah, I kind of went MIA on my supervised release. So that's what happened. So he revoked it. So you would have self-surrendered to a geo. Yeah, I was going to go December 1st to go turn myself in. But do you think it still would have been at one of these immigration facilities? Yeah, it was still there because that's where I was going to go anyways. I thought normally you serve your time in...

in a regular facility and then they'll send you to a geo afterwards. Well, no, it was, I had to do that. That, that was my regular time was at that geo. And then when I got out, immigration picked me up and I had to go to

To like those holding cells, like it was a bunch of different holding cells, like in Pennsylvania that I ended up going to all kinds of places. We'll get to that part. Yeah. All right. So now you're, they, they bring you to this geo. Yeah. So this geo is, it's, it's, there's two different kinds. There's a geo and like core, something like co-

there's two private prisons and they're all got contracts from the BOP to store like the immigrant population. So basically all these people, they can, you know, you can buy stocks in geo group right now and like buy all this stuff, all this immigration people getting picked up, those stocks are going to go up. You know what I mean? So, so I get there first day, first time I've ever been locked up like in prison anyways,

They take me, you know, I go to the, I walk in, I go to the laundry room. They give me like, you know, the bed and the thing, like the clothes, you know, to get the little bag, the little thing. I walk in, they're like, okay, you're going to be in a unit. There's like four units, A, B, C, and D. Each one has their pods. They're each unit.

Inside a unit, there's one, two, three, four, five, six, six all like this. There's a bubble in the middle. The bubble in the middle, there's two COs. There's two COs, there's 72 inmates in each pod.

One and two has an access door. So you can go into one and two, three and four, five and six. You can actually visit. Not too many people go to other pods, but each pod has like their own rules, their own structure, the way they, you know, you got to wear sandals for this. You got to make sure you wear a shirt on when you get ice.

They don't want nobody getting ice and like, you know, one of your armpit hairs get in there. Everyone has a certain TV. The Cubans have a certain table. The Africans have a certain TV, a certain table. You can only like take showers from like 10 in the morning to like 10 at night. Before 10 a.m., there's only whispers. You can only talk like...

After 10 a.m., you can talk loud as you want because there's all these people in there. And some people wake up early. Some people don't. Some people have jobs. Some people don't. And as soon as I walk in, they're like, where are you from? And I'm like, I'm from Ohio, you know, because that's where I thought that was that's the way it ran in the feds. You know, your car is like 060. That's the Ohio car.

But this is different because this is an immigration prison, you know? Even though they don't count it as immigration, this is your BOP time. This is your federal BOP time. They just...

They just houses are there. You know, immigration might won't come like once a month and just talk and they don't even care. They don't even talk to you about nothing. So I get there. So basically they wanted me to say I'm Cuban. So finally got out on Cuban. Okay, there's two Cuban guys that come. There's two Cuban guys that come. They explained to me a little bit of the house rules for that pod. And they say tomorrow we're going to go meet with the yard representatives.

at the kitchen and that's when you know they'll talk to you you show them your paperwork and I was like oh I didn't know my paperwork it's okay we'll show you talk to the you know they explained to me everything like this is what's going to happen this was like right before New Year's it was like

it was like right after Christmas, I did Christmas in Oklahoma and this was right before New Year's. So I created the next day, boom, talk to the representatives, they tell me all the rules, no fighting with Cubans, no stealing. We don't play around with no same sex stuff, like no same sex stuff on this yard.

No, you know, and then follow your rules in your pod. There's going to be the, we were Cubans. There's only like 40 to like 30 to 40 of us, but we run with, with the Dominicans. We run with the Dominicans if something big happens. So they basically said, you know, Dominicans, the Jamaicans and Africans and the Cubans, it's kind of like a Caribbean and plus the Africans that they run together. If something major happens, because the Mexicans have thousands of them, you know what I mean?

So we kind of run with, they kind of lay out the land and he basically tells me, if you don't like how this prison is run, just let me know. I can have you out of here within the next couple of days. Cause it basically, they don't want no problems. It's all ran by the, by the inmates, the, the CEOs and all that. Every,

Every CO knows who the representative is for every race. They know who the, like the other. So basically there's a yard representative and then every unit has like a representative. So the, the a unit B and then like you kind of like, if I want to tell you something in a unit, I just tell that a unit representative, he goes in and he tells you the rest of the people. And that's kind of how it's all ran by the prisoners. None of the, uh,

The CEOs, there's two CEOs and they come like once, like once an hour with the remote and everybody be like, hey, hey, hey, you know, the CEOs come and they got like a certain, every part has a certain word. And there's people, you know, in bathroom tattooing. There's people like in the toilets, like smoking K2, all kinds of shit. You know, the only thing we didn't have was cell phones. I never once seen a cell phone at all at that prison because the guards were like,

You know, they wore... This was back when Trump was first bid, you know? So they had the red hats, make America great again. Like, they treat us like you're here to steal our jobs. Oh, so they're a very anti-immigrant. Yeah, because it's like...

This country town like Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania, way out in the sticks. Like the only thing there is like the prison. What kind of inmates were there? Like what were their charges? Was it violent mixed with regular? Like there wasn't because there's not that many of these facilities. So did they have a classified by security level or is everyone just together? No, it's more of a medium low level.

But some people got like 30 years for like selling. But this is like they're at the end of their bids. So no one's there doing 30 years at that place. But like say like they get on to their last three years and they lost a bunch of points. They'll be there. But I don't think no one's there for like murder or anything like that. Most people are drug offenses. A lot of drug offenses. A lot of Mexicans like like like from the El Chapo stuff and like.

All of these people that were like caught in these indictments from like Chicago, Arizona, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and then a lot of Dominicans, a lot of Dominicans that get caught up in New York, Connecticut, you know, all around here, Pennsylvania. So there's a lot of Dominicans, a lot of Americans.

Mexicans, but not too many. Just like Cubans, there's like a couple, you know, but most of it's all, most of it's drug offenses. What's everyone's attitude in there about getting deported? Because I assume every single one of them is facing deportation. Do people talk about it? Are they like, oh, I'm going to find a way back in? Are they sad because they're separated from their families? What's kind of that demeanor? Yeah, they're super sad, dude, because a lot of them come up here, you know,

And yeah, they made mistakes, man. But it's so easy to go to prison, you know? One little stupid thing and then your whole life is gone. Of course, some of them made big time mistakes. They were selling major kilos. They got 30 years. But yeah, but their wives are here. Their kids are here. Some of these people, like some of them like me, I came here when I was six months old. I grew up in Toledo, Ohio for 40 something, 36 years. I make a mistake. I go to prison. And then...

We don't know what's going on. Luckily, I'm from Cuba and Cuba doesn't,

didn't accept me. So I got, I got out, but basically I'm like on immigration probation for the rest of my life. I have to check in with immigration every year. But a lot of these people are sad, man. There are a lot of, they're sad. They're scared. A lot of these people also, sometimes I seen it where they get out and they're, they're, they're fearing for their lives. They're like, no, we can't, I can't go back. Cause maybe they did something down there or maybe they worked with the police over here and they got somebody arrested.

they'll leave, dude. You'll see them leave. And a few months later, you'll see on the Dominican news that that guy got murdered down there in, in, in Dominican, you know, cause, cause something happened. There's a reason why you're here. There's a reason why we come here. But I mean, yeah, of course we shouldn't be doing what we're doing up here. We should be doing something better, but. Yeah. So let's talk about that. Did your mom, uh,

or family members, anyone in your family ever have a talk with you when you were young and old enough to comprehend it of, hey, you know, this is your status here. You're not yet a citizen, so you shouldn't go down this path. Like, did you know when you started drugs, there was that risk of getting caught and facing deportation? Yeah, I did. I did kind of, I didn't, okay. At first I didn't know. My mom used to say, but okay. So I came here when I was six months old. My mom became an American citizen when I was 13. Okay.

I should have got it with, it's like a parential right. If you bring up, if you bring your son, when the parent becomes an American citizen, I should have got it. But for some reason I applied, they denied it. So anyways, my mom used to say, don't, you know, become an American citizen, become an American citizen. I had a green card. So I didn't know that I could lose it. I didn't know all that. I was young. I was dumb. She used to tell me to become an American citizen, but I was dumb.

I was always so proud to be Cuban. I was always like, I'm Cuban, you know? And, but also I didn't know that if I get caught up in some, some thing, I'm going to lose all my rights here. So I'm just being stupid. Like I know that not knowing the law is like, you know,

Uh, the judge told me like not knowing the law is like my fault, not nobody else's fault. You know what I mean? But technically anyone would know that drug dealing is illegal, right? Or do you feel like you didn't have that guidance? No. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, cause like I said, I seen it my whole life. I seen people around me.

I just, I didn't have the right guidance of someone that I loved and respected teaching me the right way. You know, the people that I loved and respected always taught me the wrong way. Yeah, my mom, but I didn't look up to my mom like that. My mom was like a church going lady. I looked up to, you know, the guys, all the men around me, all the men around me was doing a bunch of, you know, doing dumb shit, you know, but even like my friends were all doing, they're following their,

you know, so I didn't have any good guidance teaching me. I wish I could have somebody that to teach me the right way. I didn't say I didn't have it. Before you were arrested, you have did you have dreams and goals of like a career? Did you want to go to college? What do you want to do in life?

Well, right before around 2011, I got wind that something was going on. Somebody said that the cops had asked about us or my name or something. So around 2011, I got a job at the Hollywood Casino, which is a local casino in Toledo. And I started working in the cleaning department. I've always had jobs, but this was just like, I'm going to go work at the casino. I like gambling, but I stopped gambling and I quit.

I went inside the casino and I said, you know what? I'm just going to work my way up one day. This is going to be Yogi's casino. I kind of put that in my mind and I worked in the cleaning department, cleaning slot machines. And then I ended up going to the poker room. I ended up bidding for a new job. I wore a suit every day. I got a gaming license, etc.

And I was going to work my way up and be like in a corporate business, you know, in a casino. So it kind of, I was, at first I didn't have no goals. I just worked from factory to factory. I didn't have any kind of ambitions or anything like that. And, yeah.

Did you graduate high school? No. Oh, you never graduated high school. No. When I was 16, my whole entire family, all my uncles and everybody got caught in this big drug conspiracy. And I just quit high school and I got a job with my mom and I started working and just giving my mom all my checks. What did she end up doing for work when she moved here? My mom was like a waitress her whole life. She was always like,

working either a banquet waitress or she does like salads. And then she ended up working at...

what is it? A factory. We ended up both working at a factory for a long time, like 10 years. Okay. So now going back to this facility, this prison facility, what was like a typical day for you? How would you spend it? Well, at first I was kind of like watching, you know, like my first three months, I just kind of sat back and my, you know, oh, the, the first, like the member, like said that got there in new year's a new year's. I was like,

Looking around, people were dancing. One guy had a sheet around and he was dancing on a table like a girl. They had spreads, a bunch of spreads. So I was like, this place is different. This is not what everybody was telling me. This is going to be the feds.

It's lots of respect, you know, but the guy came up to me. He's like, hey, this is just for the New Year's. We're going to have fun. We're going to party. I just sat on my bunk and watch. And then and then like the next three months, I just kind of watch. I kind of seen what men do, because like I said, I never really had the right guidance, you know. So I kind of like looking around, going, seeing how people go to the shower, seeing how people, you know, make their food, how they cook.

You know, I had other Cubans guiding me, you know, they were telling me like, come down to the yard. We play dominoes at the time. We, we, we have a workout session down there. They had like two different times. The Cubans had like a spot where they would work out. So I would go down there, I would meet them and then,

Eventually, I started getting like to know everybody. And then when I got when I finally, you know, started getting my routine, I would wake up super early. I would go. There was a Cuban guy named Robert. And then I started jogging. We would do 20 laps with Robert in the morning.

Then I would go to like, we would wake up, go to breakfast, I think breakfast, and then go meet with Robert, do our 20 laps. And then there was like something like some kind of count. And then we would go to lunch. Then when at lunchtime, after lunchtime, we would all meet at the gym. Some of the older Cubans would play dominoes and some of the younger Cubans would have a workout time. And then after that, there was a three o'clock count.

after the workout, we would go inside, do the three o'clock count. As soon as that cleared, we were all allowed to go to the yard. If it was a nice summer day, we would all go like to the, by the baseball diamond. There were a whole bunch of Cubans there and we would all, Cubans all shake hands. They all shake hands. They all like, if you don't shake your hand, one guy's hand, he's like, what's up, man? You got something with me? You know what I mean? Like, so you're all saying what's up to everybody. Um, sometimes we played, uh,

sometimes we would come out, we would have like this soccer balls and we'd set up little cones and we would just, a couple Cubans just set up and play soccer or we would just shoot the shit, just talk about, you know, things that a lot of the, what was crazy when I got there, a lot of the Cubans, they knew my family. They're like, oh yeah, your uncle, one guy brought pictures of like, this is your uncle, look, your uncle's, uh,

This is like, I met them in Florida because like my uncles were in the game for years. You know what I mean? So by the time I got there, there was people, they all knew people that I knew, people that, you know what I mean? They knew nobody knew me, but they heard of my family. So yeah.

And then it was a lot of politics. You know what I mean? You got to do this. You got to do that. You got to do this. But I was never like too much into the politics until basically I ended up getting drug into it. Now, were there case managers, counselors and stuff like a normal prison would have? Yeah, everybody had. Support services? Yeah.

Yeah, it was, everything was there. There was the chaplain, the, you know, the, like you said, the counselors, I had a counselor. You just, but the thing is, it wasn't too much. There was a bunch of like classes and courses, but supposedly 99% of these people are going to get, you know,

99% of these people are going to get deported. You know what I mean? Yeah. So they don't, they're not pushing rehabilitation or anything. So they are, they say they are, but none of those things are going to apply for you.

That GED, you're going to go to Mexico. That thing you're going to do, you know, but you might learn how to work on small motors because they had like a course like that. And then that could help you, you know, further on, you know. But yeah, they have all the classes, all the courses. The Cubans have this thing called Santeria. Like they worship like these spiritual things and stuff.

And you can go there, like the chaplain will bring you a cigar. All the Cubans get in there. And every week on Sunday, we get like one black and white, not a black and white, but like the swishers. And we all hit the cigar. We pass it around. Even if you're not religious, you just go in there and just hit the cigar. So every week we got to all hit a cigar. And, you know, that was like such a thing in prison. And then the butt, you have to give it back to the chaplain. And he has to put it like in a certain place and all that stuff.

Now, what was your mom's reaction to you getting, you know, arrested, sent to prison? How is she dealing with this with you? My mom was devastated, man, because my mom always like, she brought me when I was six months old and she always wanted me to become somebody. She always harped on me to be, to do something with my life. But she,

I would always tell her, like, I don't care. I had like this thing where I didn't care when I was young. I would sometimes I stay up, stay up all night with my friends. I would come home at three in the morning and go to sleep on the front porch. It was snowing. My mom would open the door like, what are you doing out here on the floor? Like, what are you doing? I'm like, mom, I don't care. She's like, get inside. Yeah, she was so frustrated because I

That put extra pressure on her. I wasn't this big drug dealer where I had a bunch of money saved up or nothing. I had to get a public defender. I had to do it all like the hard way. You know what I mean? And then when I went to prison, I didn't have nothing. I had a girlfriend. Oh, look at this. I had a girlfriend. I ended up marrying her in the county jail.

when I was in county jail right before I went to prison. And then she ended up leaving me when I was in prison. Like when I had six months left, she ended up, I caught her one day, she was crying. She said, oh, I slept with somebody, whatever. And then we ended up splitting up. So when I got out, I had nothing.

I had nothing. My mom had basically was the one that was supporting me in jail, sending me books along with my sister and, you know, a couple other people, but a couple of my friends. The Disney Plus Hulu Max Bundle. It's the ultimate bundle for an unbelievable price. Plans start to get $16.99 a month. Get it and watch Marvel Television's Ironheart on Disney Plus. I want to build something iconic. A new season of The Bear on Hulu. We can make people happy. And the X-Men.

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Switch to Apple Cash and start sending privately. Apple Cash services are provided by Green Dot Bank member FDIC. Friends gave her like, you know, a couple of dollars. So it was really hard on her. Now, why did you start to get into the politics in prison that you were mentioning? OK, so like my like I got three years in that prison, about a year and a half in. The Cubans weren't as sophisticated as the Cubans.

as the Mexicans. The Mexicans, like I remember earlier, I told you they had a representative in each pod. So the Mexicans, the Dominicans, because they had large numbers, they had it like that. The Cubans just had one yard leader, but that one yard leader ended up leaving, right? So he got out, he went back to New York. So when he got out, there was like a bid up for the new yard representative. And there was a guy that, the guy that I told you, there's a guy that he had a,

what's it called when you steal an airplane? Hijacked an airplane. He's from Connecticut. He hijacked an airplane and he was at Fort Dix. He did like 20 years in prison, but I think like year 17, he ended up transferring to my prison because

And then he, he's a Cuban guy. He, they, they were wanting, they wanted to make him the representative because he's been down so long, you know, and he was like really good dude. Like he was real respectful. So they, they, they kind of like everyone got together and they said, you're going to be the representatives of the Cubans. So he kind of said, yeah, because you don't want to say no to that. Because if you say no to that, they can actually,

You know, whatever. They can make you disappear in one of those jails. They can just tell the yard guy or tell the, you know, the white shirt, like, this guy's not with us. And they'll just make your ass disappear, you know? Disappear to where? Like a different unit? Like, you go to the hole and then eventually go to another prison. Okay. Like, if someone's fighting, like, if you're a Cuban and you keep fighting with everybody, the yard representative can go straight to the white shirt and say, you know what? This guy's not going to fit for this job.

He's going to end up bringing like a race riot. You know what I mean? Were there a lot of fights there? There wasn't a lot of fights, but there was a couple, like a couple. One time there was a Mexican, uh, Mexicans fought. It's like this thing over the TV and they beat him so bad that the helicopter came on the yard, took him and, and life flight him to the hospital. All over a TV. Yeah. All over a TV. Uh,

Anyways, what were we saying? About you getting into the politics. You said that guy became the representative. So when the guy left, there was the new representative, the guy from Fort Dix,

But he also wanted to, like, I was talking to him in the yard and me and him kind of, because he trusted in me. Me and him like always like walked the yard and talked and stuff. And I told him, do it a little bit like the Mexicans, you know, do it like the Dominicans. You're the yard leader, but you have A, B, C and D representatives. And he said, OK, he made me the A representative. So that's how I got into the politics.

I became the representative for the A and then we found representatives for each unit. You have to basically live in that unit. You live in that unit. We found the most respectful one guy. And it's all about love and respect. It's not about dictatorship. It's not about, oh, I'm in charge of you. No, it's about trying to make the prison run as smooth as possible. So nobody gets in any kind of trouble so we can all get out. You know what I mean? So I became the A representative. And then we...

when, when my, uh, basically just, you know, going in there, Hey, you know, we got to go meet at the yard today or, Hey, we got to do this. Sometimes we were going food strikes. Hey, we're not eating tomorrow. Cause we need something to happen in the prison for something, you know? And then my last six months, I was about to get out. I had six months left that, that guy got out when he got out, they wanted to make another representative. And I was like, no, because I

I am. They wanted me to become representative. And I was like, no, because I only got six months left. So we all sat there. We did like like a vote. There was like three guys that wanted to do it and they all voted me. And I could not say no, because that's that's what they want. You say no. Like I said, they'll make your ass disappear or, you know, they just don't appreciate that. So my last six months, I became the number one yard leader at Mo Shannon Valley.

For the Cubans? For the Cubans, yeah. Nobody else. How many people would you say are in the Cuban? It was about 35 to 42 people would get in and out. So it was just a small group of people just basically helping people translate, going to taking care of people, bunk moves,

somebody some cuban might come up like hey man i'm tired sick and tired of this guy this actually happened he said i'm sick and tired of this mexican guy if you don't get me out of there i'm gonna throw hot oil on him tonight and i was like bro his name was koki i was like koki no way cubans are wild bro cubans they're they're the ones that started this big riot in atlanta and they burned down prisons like back in the 80s oh shoot

So there's a lot of crazy Cubans. So they whip out their dicks. That's like a, sorry, that's like a middle finger to them. It's like whipping out their thing, you know? It's they're real disrespectful. They throw shit on people. They throw urine on people. Not at my prison. At my prison, there was kind of the calm ones, but I know their background. So when he told me that he was going to throw hot oil on this guy, I took it real seriously. You know what I mean? I went, talked to the white shirt. I said, we got to move him today.

So he said, okay, where's the best unit? I said, move him to my unit. We'll take care of him. So the white shirt came and got me like right after three o'clock count.

It was like a 330 count or something like that. As soon as they cleared, boom, we went over there. I would go with the tow. We got all the stuff, brought him to my last six months. I was there. The dude was fine. He had no problems with nobody. Now, are you having meetings with the other yard reps from the other races? Not really. If they need something, they'll come talk. They'll come send somebody to talk to me. But it was only mainly...

One time about the TVs, that time that Mexican guy got really beat up. That was an argument over a Cuban and a Mexican over the TV. There was a I was I was the number one rep at that time. And the Cuban wanted to watch a certain show and the Mexican want to watch a certain show. And then what we ended up we ended up doing like that fight broke out.

And all of this stuff, people got locked up, all this stuff, because the Mexican wouldn't listen to the Mexican representatives. The Cubans represent, the Cuban did listen. We said, hey, you're going to get your own slot. Don't worry about it. You'll be able to watch something at some time. But the Mexicans, because the Mexicans, they run together, but they also run separate. Mexico has a bunch of states. So the Solanoa guys might not fuck with the, you know, the, I don't know, Mexico City guys. So, yeah.

there was like this, these, this group was trying to tell this group what to do. You know what I mean? Like you can't do this. And, um, these were the yard leaders telling them, and then they got into a big fight and all these guys came and jumped him and beat him up real bad. The guys got life flighted. And, um, but, um,

There wasn't too many times where it was like a big, like I had to go talk to certain people for certain things. Mainly just control like my group of people and try to make sure there's no like, because a lot of it's inner fighting. You know what I mean? A lot of it, they want you to...

Or they'll say, they'll say like a Cuban's doing this to say, Hey man, I see him doing this. You should go talk to him, make sure you know, and I'll go talk to him or one guy. Cause he, he's sitting at the table or, you know, for some reason, I don't know, some dumb, it's usually stupid stuff. Were the whites in the minority there? The whites were minority because it was like, um, Canadians, um, you know, Europeans.

Yugoslavians, like people from like Russia, but they were big dudes. Their numbers must have been small in each community. Like how many Russians can be in one? Yeah. The Russians were like maybe 10, but like the Italians were like 10, you know? But like say like someone from British, there's like probably like two, you know what I mean? So did all the whites just ride together? They just rode together. They rode together, but there were some big ass white dudes, you know what I mean? Because them Russians and stuff, they're like some big old dudes. So no one...

There was so much respect, Ian, like more respect than I ever seen in any prison at all, because like everybody's like in the same boat, too. We're all immigrants. We're all here. And there was like even like the Africans, there was no like, you know, like if you're in the county jail, there's all these bloods and crips and they're all gangstered out and they're all tough and stuff.

No, at that prison, there's Jamaicans and there's Africans. And they're the most respectful Jamaicans you ever meet and the most respectful Africans. Like everything's like super respectful. Everyone's holding the door for everyone. We also had like these dog things where like people could like train dogs. They would come with the dogs. We would pet the dogs, take pictures and everything.

It was like so much love and respect. The fights would only be like here and there. It was mainly everyone just helping everyone to become a better person. What about the food situation? Is it the same that they serve in the other federal prison systems or no? Yeah, I'm pretty sure from, I've never been to any other one, but from what you guys,

what I hear on your podcast. Yeah, walk us through like the menu. The menu is the same thing. I see a lot, one day is like tuna, you know, with the onions and stuff. The burgers, the, you know, the,

Fake meat. Oh, yeah. Did you guys have like chicken Thursdays? Thursday, yep. I thought the same menu. Fish Fridays. Yep. Fish Fridays, Thursday. Yep. Same menu. A lot of beans, you know, because we're, now our commissary was probably a little bit different. We had a lot of like fresh fruits. Fresh fruits? Yeah. No, fresh, not fruits, fresh vegetables. Okay.

My bad. Fresh vegetables here, though. That's even crazier. We have vegetables because they had made all this like Spanish rice. They had the, you know, the bags of rice, the bags of beans. The coffee was, the coffee, you could do almost anything with coffee. It's kind of like trade. You can trade it for money, everything. Yeah, you know, I don't know why they don't just sell

fresh vegetables on the commissary because guys just steal it out of the kitchen anyways. At least the prison system might as well just make money from it. They sell fresh garlic that you would cut up, which I don't know how they expect people to cut up unless you make a contraband

you know, knife. But yeah, I don't get it. People are just going to steal it. They should just sell it. Sell onions. People will buy it. Yeah, they should sell all of that stuff. Sell eggs. Sell all that. Yeah, the only thing, like all the vegetables, they sold all those vegetables. So you could buy like an onion? You could buy an onion. Sometimes they have like a big bruise in it. You just cut it out. You know what I mean? That's smart.

It's not the best stuff. I think they send a lot of like the secondhand stuff, you know, but yeah, they, we had all that stuff. We had all the, like, like the Latino stuff, like the Goya. We had that. Yeah. They had all that. Yeah. They had all that stuff. Sazon. Once, once every like six months we could order these big juices, like the Goya juices. Mm-hmm.

like the big i used to love those yeah we could order that there from through the chaplain and through the church i love all those juices it's just there's so much sugar yeah they're so bad but i used to drink those all the time like the nectar and oh yeah you got your woo energy you got to let me know what you think rick flair's what flavor did you grab this one is dragon fruit what do you think it's really good dude yeah

Give you that. I started talking and I just kind of like forgot to take a drink. Yeah. So guys there, are they excited to leave? Like to get out, to be free, to be released from prison? Or are they just dreading it because they know what they're facing? Yeah. Like how are you feeling? I was feeling because I... Okay, so...

I was feeling excited because I knew that not a lot of Cubans get sent to Cuba. You know, I was one of the lucky ones in that whole situation because Cuba is a communist country and they don't get sent. They don't get sent back to Cuba. But the majority of the people there are not excited about it. They would rather stay in prison to tell you. I mean, not every single one of them.

But there's people in there, they're doing like, they're running stores, they're running, you know, lottery, or not lottery, but gambling. And they're actually making enough money where they can send their family, like in New York, like rent money and doing all this stuff. But if they go back to their country, there's no way to make that kind of money. So I think the majority of them,

they, they, they want to get out, but they kind of don't because then they get sent back to like a poor country, you know, where they can't make that kind of money. Yeah. I experienced that. Um, especially at Fort Dix, there was a lot of immigrants, um, that,

That knew they were going to go to like one of these facilities after they got out or an ice facility. And they would rather stay there because they're making money. They're able to send it back to their country. They're able to hustle. It's a better life for them inside. And not only their country, sometimes they have family right here.

They'll have family, like, you know what I mean, right here in New York. And they can actually make a bunch of money. Some of them guys make more money in prison than they do in the streets. And then they basically, like, say you owe me $300,000, I just say, hey, Ian, have your mom send it to my wife. You know what I mean? Now, were you guys allowed visits? Yeah, I had visits, yeah. But are most people maybe afraid to get a visit if they have money?

illegal immigrant family members well yeah probably yeah most most people but but no but there wasn't nobody ever had any trouble like that or immigration wasn't there like at the facility picking anybody up so yeah like every couple months my my uh I've had I did have my ex-wife came a couple times but my mom my sisters my my kids I have two kids that was with the ex-wife

Yeah, well, with my first wife. I've been married three times. Are you married now still? Yeah, I'm married right now. I got married now after I got out. And is she a citizen? Yes, my wife is a citizen. And because of your record, does that not make you a citizen? Yeah. Once I went to prison, I kind of lost all those rights. Ah, okay.

Man, so you should have married someone that was in the country the first two times. I did, but I did too. Because I always had a green card. And now since when you get the felony, you lose your green card. Oh, because the first wife you married in prison. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. My first wife I married when I was like 20-something years old. I had my two kids with her. But she was an immigrant.

No, she was American citizen. Oh, so why didn't you get citizenship from that? Because the thing is, I don't think you can just like automatically get it just because you marry. I think that's like more of like, or either that or you got to do like apply for it or something. What if you got citizenship this whole time? I didn't know because I never applied.

The only thing I ever applied for was once I was in prison, I applied for getting it through my mom because my mom brought me when I was a baby. And when she became American citizen, I was 13. So maybe I was owed it. But they said no. They sent me back a letter and said, no, I don't apply for it. Did you talk to an immigration attorney while you were in there? Like, did you...

No, because I never had the money, bro. It was like just to get like a just to talk to them is like 500. And then not only but then like the case is like thousands, like 10,000, like 20,000. Are there public defenders for immigration attorneys or no? No, they don't provide anything for immigration. That's that's where that's where they get you. Like you're allowed like the American citizen is allowed. Like when you're going to court for the BOP or for, you know,

uh feds or whatever but not for fed not for the uh immigration you don't you don't get no lawyer you got to pay for yourself and i was like i told you i wasn't this big drug dealer so i didn't have the money now do you serve the whole three years or do you get good time in immigration yeah i uh i served 31 months out of my 36 i think it was 37 i did 31 and you don't get any halfway house time or anything like that no because since you're an immigrant you don't you

That's another thing. Since you're an immigrant, they basically think you're going to immigration and you're going back to your country. And so on someone's release date, does immigration normally just pick them up right there or are they released and then picked up? No, right there. It's crazy. My mom sent me my clothes.

some, you know, Nike's outfit. I go to get released, you know, I say bye to everybody. There's they, they tell me, you know, they, we made a spread, you know, my last day I go into, you know, the day I leave, I get put on all this clothes. They, they put me in a room and then ice agents come into the other room and say, you're getting rearrested for ice.

Boom. They rearrest me, take me to ICE facility, take everything back off, put on, you know, like an orange jumpsuit and get into ICE. Now, where's this immigration facility? So now that's this one. I first they they take me from O'Shannon Valley and we drive. I don't know where, but it's kind of like this. It's called Pike County.

Pike County, Pennsylvania or something. It's like right on the border of like Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. It's kind of by like these mountains and stuff. And they're doing this crazy. There was like one kid that had murdered some like, like his girlfriend, like, like in like right next to my like, so it's like immigrants plus the county people like drug addicts, all of us. And

And like one guy is like murdered this girl. I'm like, what the hell? Why is he in here with us? But yeah, that's where the immigration hold. I did like six months there. I got kind of moved to two different ones. The first one was like a holding facility. I'm not sure where that one was.

But they lost all my clothes. The first one, they lost all that stuff that my mom sent me. They sold it or lost it or whatever. And then, so then the second facility, that's where I did most of my time. And you're not allowed to bring any of your property from that main facility you were in before? Nothing. So you're going, starting fresh politics, everything. Yeah. Are there politics there? Not in immigration. In immigration, there's really no politics whatsoever.

It was more ran like a county jail. Like everybody kind of runs, you know, by themselves. Nobody really, no trouble. It's like real, like the COs really had that place on lockdown. Like,

that was ran by the police instead of the inmates, you know? Can you walk around or are you in your cell all day? No, you can walk. There's like a pod where everyone's like has their own cell, but you can get out and go to like your little area. And then once a day they have like a yard and you go to the yard and, but it's all like enclosed. The yard is just like a chain in the top, you know, you can see, but it's all like everyone playing racquetball and stuff like that. Hmm.

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And could you get visits there or no visits? No, there was no visit there. And what are they telling you when you get there? Like, what's the expectancy to actually get physically put on a plane and...

flown back to your country. So, so yeah, they're, they're telling you the whole time, like you're going back to your country. Like if your country doesn't accept you pick a third country that I'm like, what the hell? And the judge is like telling you, like you're going back to your Cuba. And so you see a judge when you get there. Yeah. So when you get there, you, you get there, they, they, they tell you, are you going to fight it? Are

Are you going to plead guilty? Are you going to fight your deportation? And if you fight it, I've seen there was people there, they were like two years fighting it. And then all of a sudden they lose it. They get sent back, but they don't want to get sent back so bad. So they just try to fight it. They have their family outside paying lawyers. Everybody's working and trying to pay lawyers. And a lot of these guys, they fight and fight and fight it. And if you don't have a real like legit reason why someone,

somebody is like trying to like, you got to have paperwork why the government wants you, why you're in such deep trouble. If not, then you're going to fight and eventually they're going to send you back. So,

I didn't fight it. They ended up just deporting me. And then they kept trying. They tried to deport me to Cuba, but Cuba wouldn't accept me because Cuba is a communist country. They don't have we have no trade embargo with Cuba, the United States and Cuba. They have like this thing called an embargo where nothing from the United States can go to Cuba. There is where people can travel there now. They got like this thing where Obama did like some traveling thing, but we don't have nothing. So,

They tried to send me then they couldn't so what do you mean by tried like were you physically on the plane? No, no, so like there's like a paper I guess that they send but then they gave it they send it back or something. I'm not sure They they they held me there for six months. A lot of the Cubans get out in three months They held me there for like five and a half six months and they they said that they tried to send me but they did but

Cuba didn't accept me. Now, if you don't fight it there, what's the turnaround time to get shipped out? Like, say you get in there on one day and you say, I'm not fighting it. How long will that person stay there for from what you saw there? Like, I think about 90 days they have to decide. I think the government has to decide if you are, you know, eligible to leave. I think they can only hold you for so many days. If after 90 days, there's like a...

You know, there's like rights and stuff where you can't just hold somebody for no reason. So I think once they you're deported, they have like a 90 day period. I think maybe they can extend it to another 90 day period. You know what I mean? Like, but I think within six months, people are out of there. Within three to six months, most people are out of an immigration place. Do you think that's expedited even now?

in today's world with what's going on with politics and everything because it seems like they're shipping people out pretty quickly. Yeah, it's probably, they probably picked it up. They're probably trying to do it as fast as possible right now. But also, probably not too because

A lot of this stuff, we all think it's all about the politics, but really a lot of it's about money. You know what I mean? Because the more people that can get incarcerated, the more money the companies will make. Because all of these companies, all the way from the commissary, the telephones,

The private prisons, they're all making for every person in there. So the stocks go up. So all those politicians have money in all these. So I don't think it's really good for them to just get them in and out. They take them from this holding facility to another holding facility, then take them to a geo, hold them there as much as they can, and then take them to... You know what I mean? So it's like...

And then if so, let's say they pick up an immigrant. Right. The immigrant has to do his time first for the for the crime. So say he stole something. He has to do that whole time here in the United States for stealing something. Then you have to go to immigration, do your immigration time, get deported and then get sent to your country. It's all it's all a big money machine. This whole system works.

I mean, the whole thing. Now, don't some individuals get released on an ankle monitor while they're fighting their immigration case? I think so, but I think it's really rare. Did you see that in your experience there? No. Most people, especially because, you know, back then it was like, back then it was Donald Trump was president. There wasn't letting nobody out. You could try to apply for it, but most people, you had to stay in jail while the whole process was being done.

you know, evaluated or whatever. - And are the men and women separated? - Yes, it's all men where I was at. - In the same building just separate or was there a whole nother building for women? - I didn't see no women at all, man. I think it was a whole different prison or something. - And the correctional officers are just whoever that county jail is that's running it, like county employees? - Yeah, 'cause they get like a certain amount

per uh per you know per guy from the you know from the federal government to house them so like say let's say like you have a county jail but you don't really have too many people that go to your county jail you can get a contract from the federal government and then you can start housing a bunch of you know illegal immigrants so when you finally get released what do they say to you

So like the, the, the, my last day. So like the immigration guy comes to the door, the CEO, I think it was like an immigration guy though. It wasn't the CEO. It was like the actual immigration. He's like, Gacita, go pick up your stuff. I was like, what? I was so excited. Cause I didn't know, I still didn't know what was going on. So they, you know, I gave away all my stuff. It was my last day. Um,

give away all my stuff. And then I, I, they, they take me to like a holding cell, you know, you're there, they're doing the process. They, they write me a check for the, the, the amount of my commissary. I think I had like $87. They write me a check that immigration guy. He's like, where's your clothes? And I was like, dude, they stole it at the other jail. He's like, no way. He's like, so you're going to have to get out when these orange jumpsuit. And I was like, what? And,

like one of those things that you have upstairs, like one of those orange things. And I'm like, I can't get, I'm not going to get out like that. So he's like, okay, let's go to this shed. So he took me like to this like immigration, like shed that they have like a building over there. And they found like, like this blue, uh, sweatsuit outfit. They had like a bunch. They gave me, it was really tight. I put it on. Um, they, they,

They gave me one piece of paper that had like my immigration stuff. And I was like, this is your, he said, this is what you're going to use for an ID. Go to your house in Toledo, Ohio. This is the immigration guy. He said, go back to your house in Toledo, Ohio. Basically letting me out like on like on like supervision, like

with my mom, even though I'm 40, you know what I mean? But like, I have to just go back to my address. So I went back, I got on a, he dropped me off at Greyhound and he's like, a bus from here is leaving at 3:30 PM to Toledo, Ohio. Make sure you get on that bus. I went in there. Oh, first we stopped at a bank. He cashed that check. He gave me the money. I went in there with that money. I bought the ticket.

for the Greyhound. I told the lady this is the only ID I had because she asked me for ID. She said, it's okay. This happens all the time, you know, from the prison. And then I get on the bus, 18 hours, boom, drive to...

from Pennsylvania to Toledo. At one point, no one knew I was getting out. I called my daughter. I said, Madison, I'm out, I'm out. She started crying really bad because nobody knew what was going to happen. She's like, tomorrow, I told her, tomorrow I'll be at the Toledo Greyhound at eight o'clock in the morning. Somebody make sure you're there. When I got there, my nephew Michael was there.

I was like, what's up? He took me back to my mom's house. That's where everybody was there. I had the whole three years I grew my hair really long. I had long hair. I had a big, long beard. Everybody said I looked like Jesus. I got out, seen my kids and my mom for the first time. And that's when this journey, the one that I'm on now, started. So tell us about that. Okay, so like at that point, I...

I didn't know what to do. So my, a lot of my uncles work on the railroad now. A lot of my family works on factory jobs and stuff like that. So, but my mom, this whole time I've been in prison, she cleans houses. She cleans houses for a lady, you know, for like $10 an hour. But,

Also, she's been getting her own clients. So she's been kind of working her way out of working for that lady. And she has about 15 houses. So when I get out, I'm like, mom, let's just start a cleaning business, you know, everything in your name, because, you know, I'm a legal immigrant or whatever.

Everything's in your name and I'll just help you run it. And we have a cleaning business. So we started Toledo's Best Cleaning. It's a cleaning business. We do residential houses and also some businesses and offices and stuff like that. So that's what we mainly was doing.

And we were growing and we're getting houses after houses, you know, doing just a really good job. And then I kept listening to podcasts. So I always listen, like putting my earbuds in. And eventually I just kept listening to podcasts, but I was getting bigger. So the whole time I was in prison, I was working out, I was getting fit. And then when I got out,

Started working, going to McDonald's, you know, eating unhealthy as hell. I ended up getting sick. So I'm cleaning houses, but I'm getting fat and I ended up getting sick. Listening to podcasts all the time. You know, Joe Rogan, all the podcasts that you can think of. Murder Mysteries, all this stuff. The whole time and then, but also getting sick, like getting bigger. So one day I get on TikTok and I say to myself, man,

So I'm like, this is the first social media thing I ever did. You know, I get on TikTok and I said, hey, you know, I don't know if I'm going to do this, but starting today, I'm going to start doing TikToks every day. I'm going to start working out every day. And, you know, and that's how I started. I got on TikTok. I started doing like workout videos, but I didn't like it.

explain to nobody, nothing to nobody because I didn't even know what I was doing. So I would just do like, you know how you can do a motivational video? So I did duets. I just did like my thing and I would do like David Goggins in the background, like, come on guys. So I started doing intermittent fasting and I became like a motivational type of motivational

Like a character, you know, Big Yogi's Garage. I started a podcast called Big Yogi's Garage and I started filming in my garage and then I started running like, um,

Started renting like hotels, Airbnbs. And then eventually I met this guy at the gym and he ended up renting me a studio for 50 bucks an episode. And then eventually I ended up getting a studio from across the hall and I ended up getting my own studio. And I still, the whole time I've been doing TikToks and I've been doing, you know, Facebook, all this motivational stuff.

um, so everything's going good. Podcast, Big Yogi's Garage, local artists, entrepreneurs, local, all this stuff from Toledo and stuff like that. But then one day I just so happened to go to church. Um, I already was kind of feeling all of this like, uh, vibe, like, like, I feel like God has me on a purpose, you know, but I wasn't sure. And then,

I did find this like little key chain. I was cleaning a rental property. I was telling my employee about how my dad, he had a gold chain and my, some guy put up on him. Right. And, uh, the guy's like, I like that chain. And then he swindled my dad from stealing my dad's gold chain. You

You know, the guy gave my dad like a bunch of fake jewelry and he stole my dad's gold chain. And I was telling my employee, like, I think that's, that's crazy. But you know, that's like the devil works in mysterious ways. He took my dad's gold chain, had a cross on it. Right. I was like,

I was telling my employee that I get on a ladder and I open up this cabinet on top of the refrigerator. I look and it's a key fob with the cross. And it says something like, you know, something about the cross. And I was looking at it. I was like, damn, that's crazy. I was just telling you about the cross because I was telling my employee, I was just telling you about the cross and look what I found the cross. So I kept it. I put it in my pocket. That same day, some lady that I know from when I worked at the factory, she asked me something like,

Hey, Yogi, does your wife go to this church? I'm like, yeah, she does. This was like a Friday, right? So I'm like, yeah, I'm like, man, what's going on? All this church stuff. So and also the guy that does my tattoos, he messaged me like, Yogi, let's do a tattoo on Monday. I was like, I don't know what to do yet.

So all of this stuff happening to me, right? So I go to, I call my wife. I said, babe, I'm going to church with you on Monday or on Sunday. She's like, okay. So I go into church with my wife. The pastor's up there saying like, you know, who wants to give their life to Jesus Christ and stuff. And in my mind, I'm like, no, I'm good. I don't do that. Like I had plans to like grow my podcast and do like,

I wanted to do like edibles and I wanted to promote, you know, I had all this other stuff in my mind. But then finally, like my body just turned. I go up there. I repent for my sins. I told him, you know, there's like a little prayer they do. Gave the pastor a hug. Ever since then, dude, I just that Monday I went to go to the tattoo shop. He's like, what do you want? I ended up tattooing really big right here. I got three crosses. I have tattoos.

I got faith, love and hope. And I got the day 3-3-3-3-3-3-24, the day that I got saved. And then after that, I just like I felt like my ego was like I was always flexing like big yogi's garage. So I just felt like my ego was like taking off too big and I wanted to humble myself. So I changed the name of the podcast to have faith, show love, give hope.

And I basically do the same thing. I still interview all kinds of different Toledo people, but I'm humble myself and just to try to be like more of a godly person so people can see like when they sit down with me, they can see like the Jesus in me. You know what I mean? Because that's what you want to do when you do that. You want to not only just go to church, but you guys, so you want to like

Kind of like be the person that kind of inspires people. Like by you living your life as a good person, you can like turn people into like,

like following Jesus. But also I don't force feed any of this stuff to nobody on my podcast. I just like have conversations with people and I just want people to, to get to meet me and just like build like this beautiful, like friendship and stuff like that. How has your immigration status affected your everyday life since getting out of that ice facility? Well, um,

It's like this burden that's on my back. And it's like, nobody really knows because people see like this guy that's going to work out, this guy that's doing podcasts and helping his mom create this like great business in Toledo. But like nobody knows like all of this stuff that at any moment, especially like with the stuff that's going on now with, you know, President Trump just coming in and everybody's talking about immigration and all this stuff. So that puts another burden on me like,

because I want to create something for the future, not only with my podcast, but with my cleaning business. Like I want to create something for the future, but at any moment, can they come and take me and take me from my family? And I've been trying to do something positive for my community. So I've been, I try to do things like you, like try to,

outreach to people but I haven't never ever received anybody that wants me to go talk to a prison or nobody that wants me to go talk to like certain kids I've always wanted to do that but it seems like the city that you're from doesn't really care about you until somebody else from outside starts caring yeah that's how it goes did you you had that right yeah I still have that with Danbury Danbury sucks yeah that's what it seems like that's why I'm moving out of Danbury they're very unsupportive over there

Yeah. That's it. Cause like you, you, you promote, you know, Mike bites, right? Yeah, of course. But there's, but there's, there's, um, there's, there's places around here, but, um,

It's very strange how those smaller kind of cities are the places your hometown kind of treats you, you know, unless like you're super successful. Yeah. I just have a lot of history with Danbury and whatnot, but I'm moving out of there actually this week. Are you? I'm moving to Richfield over here. Okay. Getting out of Danbury, time to spread my wings. Are you still going to have this studio over here though? Of course, yeah. This is Richfield too. Oh, this is Richfield. So I'll be in Richfield, living in Richfield. Okay.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about your status and what you've been through that you want to, you know, portray to people? Because you...

You hear, you know, for instance, let's get rid of the immigrants that have committed crimes in the country. Technically, you fall under that category, even though you weren't a violent offender. So how do you feel about being labeled kind of in that group? And what's something you want people to know about kind of that blanket label? Yeah, I can't speak for all of them because, you know, some people do—

really bad things and those people need to go and that's fine. But somebody like me, like I've been here since I was six months old. I don't know nothing but the United States and Toledo, Ohio. I've grew up here my whole life. And so me, I feel like, like,

I know I made a mistake, man, but I got out and I've been trying my best to become a better person in my community, to be like, to be the light, to be that guiding light to that kid so he doesn't have to go through the same mistakes that I did. And I post all this stuff on social media and I try to promote living a good life, not just with like, because like I told you, I'm Christian, but not only because of that,

But just a good life every single day to be like a good father, a good husband, a good, you know, a good friend, a good person in the community. I'm trying to make sure that because when I went to prison, you know how you can take letters and stuff. I didn't have too many people to write me letters of recommendation, but I've been trying to become a better person. So if immigration ever does come and get me, I can have, you know, people now people, you

You know, ever since I got out, those people can see like all the positive things that I've done since I've been out. So maybe that'll help me one day. I think also...

It's hard for people that come from different countries to come here and get everything done legally. The, you know, the 100% legal way. So a lot of people, they get caught up. I know that a lot of Cubans, they, when they come, there's always like that, you know, the older Cuban guy that gives them like, you know, fake credit cards and puts them to do stupid illegal things right away. So, yeah,

Be careful when you come to this country that you don't get caught up with the bad person that's going to guide you directly into the bad thing. You know what I mean? Try to understand that if you ever come to this country or if you're in this country right now and you're an immigrant, a lot of people are here legally. They came through immigration and they're all legally, they're doing their paperwork. Just understand.

Be aware. Don't do anything that was going to get you in any kind of trouble, not even from stealing a pack of gum to like, you know, doing some kind of drug offense, because that right there is going to ruin your whole immigration journey.

You know, your whole immigration thing. So think about every single thing you do now that you're here in the United States and make sure you're smart and do all your paperwork, go to immigration, make sure you do every single step, make sure you apply for every single little thing. And don't think that, um,

You know, don't think that everything's going to be okay. And no, like me, because I just thought I got a green card, everything's going to be okay. But be careful because if you get caught up in any situation, you'll be in a lot of trouble. Now, have you thought about or given thought about what life would look like if you were to get deported? Do you have a plan for that? I've thought a bit about it, but I don't have like...

I don't have a plan because I guess if I was to get deported to Cuba, right, I would just go to Cuba and like figure out my life. But I've left there when I was six months old. My whole entire family sold everything to come to the United States. So I would have to just start all over my whole life and just, and Cuba is like,

Like they cut your power off at night. It's like a hundred degrees there. It's like in the Caribbean, you know? So I wouldn't know what to do. I wouldn't know where to start. I wouldn't know nothing. The only thing is luckily I've created this platform in Toledo and I've created this cleaning business where maybe the cleaning business could keep going and then they could actually send me like a hundred dollars here and there. And I could just live on some, you know, because that would stay,

that would still have to help my mom and everybody else, but they could at least send me something. So what's your status as of now? Um, are you in touch with ICE or how does that all work? Yeah, I go to ICE every single year and report every single year in Cleveland, but my status, I think I'm just stateless in America. Uh, Cuba didn't accept me. America doesn't really want me. And, uh,

that's the scariest part, man, because like I can't go travel or like I can come here like in the United States, but I can't go to any other country because I don't have the paperwork to go either in or out of a country. You don't have a passport. I don't have a passport. I don't have nothing like that. So...

and basically, and I, and I'm still trying to help my mom create this business. I don't have like all these thousands of dollars to like, you know, to, to fight this case and like federal or not federal, but immigration or anything. The one thing is by me doing all of this,

positive things in my community. I think maybe one day I could probably get like a governor's pardon or a presidential pardon if I do something good enough or I deserve something like that. But that's kind of like the only thing that I can like look up. I think that I can get now is a pardon where they say, you know, Yogi, for all the good things that you've done since you've been out of prison, maybe we can pardon, you know, all this stuff that happened before. Yeah, I mean, I think...

hearing these types of stories definitely gives a different perspective. And I think each case is definitely situational. You know, obviously we want the violent offenders

that are here illegally out of the country, which is what I think they're pushing. And there are a lot of nonviolent offenders that are here in the country too. And I think each case needs to be evaluated how long they've been here. I mean, if you came here as a child, you know, you didn't knowingly enter the country illegally. No, I came in legally. Oh, you came in legally. Okay. Yeah. No, because...

At the time that I came in, President Jimmy Carter and Fidel Castro opened the sea and we all came legally. I didn't like break no laws or anything. Okay. Yeah. I know you had mentioned the green card. I didn't know if physically at that moment at the crossing. Yeah. So that's all things that I think need to be taken into account on a case by case basis. Yeah. And I agree with you. Like if somebody was to do something really bad, like, you know,

murder, all this stuff, like these gangsters and stuff. Yeah, that's fine. I'm going to, to me, bro, I'm an American citizen. I know it's hard that I'm not American citizen. I say that, but dude, I am American, bro. I've been here since I was six months old. I bleed like red, white, and blue. Like I believe in all this, like a lot of the stuff that like, you know, the stuff that people say, like, you know, um,

yeah, like I'm not this big Trump supporter, but I like some of the stuff they do. I like some of the stuff they, you know, they, they, they, they apply into the government. But I'm like, dude, I came, if I was born six months later, I would be American citizen, bro. And it sucks that I'm now I'm in this position where I feel like this big burden on my back that I have to carry on forever.