Operation Streamline Part One

Dear friends,

This is something I have been wanting to write about for so long but kept putting off. It is without a doubt the hardest part of my job. Not balancing planning and organizing delegations with staying on top of immigration news, getting out BorderLinks' monthly email in a timely fashion, driving a 15-passenger van, or looking to native Spanish speakers for help with simultaneous interpretation when an animated maquiladora worker excitedly tells a five-minute long story about organizing a union in the factory without pausing to breathe and wanting to get every last detail communicated in English. (Respira, respira - breathe, breathe).

I love my work, and I love that every day is different. I love that I get to learn and experience and be challenged by so many different things and help make it possible for others to do that as well. But I'd rather not experience this. I'd rather them not experience this. But as long as it goes on, we have to because we have to end it.

This is the hardest part because it is emotionally hard. And I will have to do it, have my heart broken, endure, and endure, and endure countless times throughout the year with every delegation I lead. 

I have been a witness to Operation Streamline four times. I have been once as an assistant delegation leader as a part of my BorderLinks training, once on our YAV border delegation with YAVs from Tucson, Austin, and Denver, and I have since been twice as a part of my own delegations that I am leading. There are times to be objective, systematic, and academic, but in these cases I do not want to be cold. I do not want to become calloused. I don't want it to stop bothering me.

I started writing about Operation Streamline in my previous blog post, Immigration 101. The basic gist that I wrote is this: "The government's intent was to make it so hard for people to cross that they wouldn't try anymore, but since people are still coming. In [2005 in Del Rio, Texas] they started criminalizing immigration violations and detaining people for months instead of simply deporting them. This program called Operation Streamline exists in several cities, and at least in the Tucson sector, 70 people are arbitrarily chosen to get streamlined and criminally processed every single day within a span of a half hour to 1.5 hours. Sentences range from 30 days to 6 months in detention."

The following is more of my take, but if you'd like to see a video rundown en ingles y español, click here: Operation Streamline: The Mass Incarceration of Migrants. Or if you're more of an academic journal person, try this: 2010 Review of Operation Streamline 

With BorderLinks, our typical delegation framework when we take groups to Streamline (which happens every day Monday to Friday, 1:30pm to whenever it's done, in the specially built special proceedings room) is that we have lunch at BorderLinks and head out around 1pm, stay however long it takes, do a short debrief, and then talk with a public defense lawyer who will help answer all the technical legal questions. Therefore, my writing about Streamline is grounded in four times witnessing, four times conversing with public defenders, and four times feeling confused and helpless.

This special proceeding is open to the public, as long as everyone fits in the seven to eight pews in the rightmost section of the room. No cameras are allowed into the federal courthouse building, and technology that can be brought into the courtroom must be turned off. So we have no record, or at least I don't (some people out there I'm sure have sneakily taken photos or recorded on their smartphones), about the spectacle of, to generalize, 70 brown people shackled at their hands, waist, and ankles, guarded and represented by majority pale people, in what is the most elegant room perhaps the majority of the defendants have ever set foot in.

The original idea was to create a zero-tolerance policy towards illegal immigration and to process every illegal entry criminally instead of just civilly by way of immigration enforcement (aka just deporting someone right across the border or back to their country of origin). If it were truly zero-tolerance, the estimates are that 600-700 people would have to be processed criminally per day. Instead, the Tucson sector only has the infrastructure to process 70, so it is effectively about a 90-percent-tolerance policy.
 
With the courts already backlogged, how do we stick a whole bunch of people with the same criminal charge in a lot less time than it takes to process each individual case through a trial? Streamline.  
Defendants are effectively signing a deal to plead guilty to a misdemeanor of illegal entry, and the federal government will waive the charge of felony illegal re-entry. Then, based on number of prior deportations and if there are other crimes associated with illegal entry defendants are given sentences between the parameters of 30 and 180 days, with time already served in detention credited towards their sentence, thank goodness. However, because it is an en masse hearing, judges do not say out loud in court the reasoning for each individual's sentence length, which leaves us witnesses speculating. 

An additional factor in the confusion is that in Tucson there are seven or eight magistrates who sit on the bench for Streamline, and every time I go for the next few times I could see a new judge. And because there is so much judicial variation, in how the Streamline process is carried out, I should probably do a better job of bring a notepad into the courtroom instead of almost completely covering the back of my hand with all the differences I noticed like I did during my most recent Harvard Divinity delegation.

The part of the court proceedings the public does not get to see is the time where defendants meet with their lawyers earlier in the day. Thanks to Gideon v. Wainwright, every defendant in a criminal case that cannot afford a lawyer will be appointed one, so everyone is assigned either a public defender, or, because the federal public defenders office's budget has been slashed, a contract lawyer working for about $110/hour. Each lawyer in Streamline for the day will receive 4-5 cases and a limited time to meet with all of them, so each defendant ends up with about 20-40 minutes with their lawyer to explain the terms of their case, their rights, and the plea deal, as well as look for any possible defense to take the case to trial or make an asylum claim.
 
At least the system recognizes the vast majority of the defendants in Streamline are Spanish speakers, and therefore there is a court interpreter and lawyers have to be bilingual in English and Spanish. Many of the lawyers themselves are Latin@, but as someone with a college degree in the U.S., legalese is still wonderfully complicated in my primary language. Think defendants understand what their rights are and what they are agreeing to with one or even two language barriers if their primary tongue is neither English nor Spanish but perhaps an indigenous language? If it is determined that a defendant is not at a level of understanding due to mental competency or language barrier, the case is often either given more time or thrown out.



A few more of the basics based on what I have seen and been told:
- Border Patrol has a lot of discretion over who out of the 600-700 daily illegal entries gets streamlined.
- Most Streamline cases are processed within a week of when a person was picked up by Border Patrol.
- When we the public see them, defendants are seated in the courtroom in the clothes in which they were arrested. 
- Out of the 70, usually 2-5 of them are women. The rest are men, some of whom look as young as 14, and some of whom could be in their sixties. To be processed in Streamline you are supposed to be a legal adult, but sometimes minors say they are 18+ so they are processed with a family member of the same gender. Minors are sent to different facilities, as are males and females.
- Every defendant is shackled at three points: their hands, around their waist, and between their ankles, allowing for only short strides. I've heard different rationale for this from different people, one saying that every federal criminal defendant in that building is shackled. Another said that only when the defendants outnumber the court marshals is everyone shackled, for safety reasons, of course.
- The judge addresses all of the defendants at once to read the charges and make sure the defendants understand their rights. Every judge does this differently, and with different speed and intentionality in their voice. 
- Groups of five to seven come up to the front to stand at microphones with their lawyers. They are then questioned individually these days, with different groupings of questions depending on the judge.
- In hearing judges read off, "Mr./Ms. ______, are you a citizen of _____ and did you enter the United States on ________ away from an area or time designated by U.S. immigration authorities?" (or some variation of this), you usually learn where people are from. Mexico has the largest representation, unsurprisingly, but other typical homelands are El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.
- Normally all you hear an individual say is "si," "no," and "culpable" (guilty). And then they are led away.



I have personally seen it take 33 minutes to process 70 defendants. 33 minutes. And I have seen it take around two hours. Has justice been served here? 

One public defendant we have met with said first thing, "So, you are all shocked and appalled at witnessing brown people being shackled who are economic refugees." From there, we processed more of what we saw and heard, and contextualized it within economic systems and the private prison industry booming as a result of the criminalization of economic refugees.
  


This is when I struggle the most between being professional as a delegation leader and experiencing right along with my participants. There is delicacy required to impartially (as impartially as possible) opening a space for others to experience and form their own conclusions, contributing your knowledge without tainting their organic takeaways or guiding them to what you want them to get out of it, and sharing your own reactions to grow with your group.
 
My first Streamline experience was unfortunately an excellent trial run for professionalism vs. being human. I was as an assistant delegation leader with Alex's group from Phillips Theological Seminary. I had spent some time with them the couple of days prior, so we had some foundation for relationship-building. I sat in the front row next to a participant, a forty-something year-old woman with whom I had shared some decent conversation. I'm pretty sure she had also been one of these forty- to eighty-year-olds on this delegation who had given advice to me, this 23-year-old, as parents would. 

Sitting in the front row on the right side of the courtroom, we were the last thing defendants saw before they disappeared through the side door to await their return to detention. Most were led to the door with their lawyers and stopped to thank them, once in a while glancing over at the peanut gallery. 

But one man, probably in his thirties, in his last moments in the courtroom, paused and turned around just before passing through the door. He looked each one of us in the front row in the eye, and just nodded.

I took that as to mean he intended to thank us for being there, and I just cried. I hate crying, and for much of my life, I haven't. But this, I couldn't take it.

I've learned it takes something to be vulnerable with other people; to share yourself with other people. I'm still not good at it, but I don't know if anyone really ever is. 

Outside the courtroom afterwards, I had the opportunity to walk with her as the group migrated to the public defenders office, and I apologized for crying. She refused to accept my apology, and instead told me that it was powerful for me as a leader to experience that with them, and to acknowledge my own humanity. And that is why I say as I have to bring groups, and bring myself, to Streamline time in and time out, I don't want it to stop bothering me.

The first time, I remember feeling like it was a zoo. That, to be very blunt, we were a bunch of white people watching brown people led around in chains. As other people I have connected with through BorderLinks have said, it is just another facet of the criminalization of dark-skinned and indigenous people. And as my delegation co-leader from HEPAC, MaryCruz, says, "History does not repeat itself. We repeat history." We have choice in the matter. But we continue to tell people their way of life isn't valid, and whomever does not fit into our framework is cast aside and/or criminalized. And we silence them.



Voice.
To me, the most important piece of Streamline is voice. The voices that drown when you have an en masse hearing for 70 people. The voice that fill the courtroom versus the Spanish interpretation that flows only to the headsets of defendants who need them. The power of the voices of different judges as they vary in their approach from "Get me the heck out of here" and throwing three questions mumbled in succession at each individual, to "I really want to make sure that you understand your rights and that you know what you are agreeing to," to "Do you have anything you would like to say?"

Typically, even when a judge asks, "Do you have anything to say?", the answer is "No." However, it does happen that there is a precedent set by one person who speaks up, and then others follow suit. My first time at Streamline, a man in the very last group spoke up and said, "I just want to say that even though we came here illegally, no human being is illegal, and I just wanted you to know that." The judge could have ignored his comment or replied in any number of ways, but she said, "Thank you for saying that, and I'm sorry." I feel it was such a tragedy for only four other defendants to hear his message. What power that would have carried for the other 65.

Last time, near the last few groups, three out of five spoke up and shared their reasons for coming into this country without the requisite documents. One talked of his sick mother in Mexico that he had to send money back to. Another talked of reuniting with his son in the United States. And then a third said he needed to find work in the states to support his wife and three children back in Mexico.

The judge this time took it upon herself to tell each of them variations of this message: "I understand things are hard, but your family needs you to be safe and working back in Mexico. I know you want to do what is best for your family, but what is best is for you to be with them."

Clearly she was giving them the best advice she could think of. But first, that doesn't address the issue of separation from family in the U.S. And two, that demonstrates a lack of understanding on her part about the economic situation back home. That if there were work back home that paid enough to take care of their families, they would not have risked their lives to come here.

One man from Mexico was not wearing the earphones for interpretation, instead going through the entire court proceeding in English, signifying he had either practiced a lot of English in Mexico, or he had been in the U.S. a long time and was immersed. He used his voice in a way very powerful for us, which was not in front of the entire court, but when he reached the audience before going through the door, he said to us in perfect English, "Have a good day." Ay, mi corazon, my heart.

In my four times at Streamline, I've only seen one case thrown out because of a language barrier. Typically that would happen in the morning before the public proceeding, but this young man was just 18 years old, his first language was one I had never heard of, and when it was his turn at the front, his lawyer just noted to the court that they had some problems with understanding and asked for more time at the end. The lawyer claimed that they could go through the court proceeding because even though it was clearly evident that he did not understand everything that was being said, he had up to 8th grade education in Spanish and understood alright when it was written. The judge did a verbal evaluation with them after everyone else had left the courtroom, and she in agreement with, surprisingly, the prosecutor, advocated the case be thrown out.

This transpired under a female judge who spoke deliberately slowly and clearly and asked many times throughout the process for the defendants to confirm understanding or raise questions if they had any. She is the only one I heard ask if anyone wanted more time with their lawyer, and one defendant actually took her up on that, standing up and receiving a sidebar with his lawyer while the first group of five processed to the front for questioning. How would defendants know they have a right to and deserve more time with their representation?

And how do you listen to 70 people saying "culpable," "guilty," when they hang their heads to confirm they crossed the border without the permission of the mighty United States?

When it is in fact the responsibility of the mighty United States to prove they performed the action of crossing the border without permission at the specified time and place, like the prosecution asserts?

When they perhaps have a claim to asylum or derivative citizenship or another defense, but just didn't have enough time with their lawyers?

When if every single Streamline defendant chose to take their individual case to trial, it would overwhelm the system and who knows what would happen? 

But do you encourage defendants to do that when they resign themselves to being culpable and just want to get this over with so they can serve their time and get out of detention as soon as possible, rather than waste in detention waiting for a trial for an indefinite period of time?

When they know they could get out in 30 days, or 85 days, or 160 days to try to find work to feed their families? 

How do you bear witness to this? I have no good answer, and that is the struggle.


Further rhetorical questions:
What does it mean to be a witness? Do your best to acknowledge the humanity of others? How do you do that? Share someone's pain for that split second of eye contact? Share their joy that this process is over, or that they got a shorter sentence than it could have been? How in the world do you communicate numbness, anger, hurt, frustration, helplessness, etc. in a single glance?

There is no justice served here, in my opinion. This is when I feel most helpless in my job. But people in Tucson are doing something about it, from BorderLinks where we feel nearly every delegation should witness Streamline, to the End Streamline Coalition, which has more action-driven intentions - including a letter campaign to all lawyers and judges to demand them to recuse themselves from participating in Streamline, so as to jam the cogs in the machine.

And on October 11th (goodness, this was a long time ago!), people chained themselves to the federal courthouse gates and around two buses to prevent Operation Streamline prosecution and deportation proceedings, and they succeeded! "According to multiple sources, as a result of the three and a half hour long and continuing peaceful blockade, the court, for one of the only times in it’s history, cancelled the proceedings where detainees are presented in shackles in front of a judge and sentenced as a group" -  Tucson Blocking Deportation Buses

“'Anyone who witnesses Operation Streamline will come away convinced that it is both unconstitutional and immoral,' explains writer and author, Roberto Cintli Rodriguez. 'There is no justice in that courtroom. It violates every principle the US claims to ascribe to.  When humanity is confronted with unjust laws, it is our responsibility to challenge them.'” I have since met this author, who happens to be a professor at the University of Arizona, on several occasions because he is so active in the community, and I am amazed by how he shows up for different organizations working for immigration justice on top of his work in the classrooms about reinvisioning the colonial Americas and patterns of migration. And he makes the time to get to Streamline regularly to continue to be present, to continue to be a witness, just as we do.

If you're feeling overloaded already, just think I was about to make this blog post about three times as long! Instead, I decided to focus on the initial Streamline experiences and heart-mode in this post. In the next installment of Kathryn Witnesses Operation Streamline, I'll take the corporeal to the streets and dive into the intellectual/philosophical realms with some political theory and civil disobedience.

Hasta pronto,
Kathryn

Immigration 101

Hi friends, it's good to connect with you again! 

 

First, I want to bring a quick fundraising note to your attention. Every YAV is asked to raise $3000 to to contribute to their year of service, and each YAV site is asked to raise an additional $3000 per YAV (AKA $9000 between Heather, Amy Beth, and myself). The wonderful news is that the three of us Tucson YAVs have already met all our individual goals! In my case, my home church of St. Luke Presbyterian blew me away by fundraising for the Tucson YAV program through their Change for Change effort in the month of June, and many friends and family contributed as well through St. Luke. I am forever grateful to all who helped make my journey here possible through countless ways, including blowing the individual fundraising goal out of the water!

And here's another piece of exciting news that we learned today: three months into our YAV year, we are only $500 away from meeting our collective house goal! We would love to meet our house goal by the end of the year so that our site can stay financially afloat, make it possible to recruit more YAVs for next year, and keep deepening our connections with the Tucson community.

 

So if you are so moved, please consider supporting our social justice ministries on the border by helping us meet our Tucson YAV site house goal! You can do that by clicking the "donate" button on the upper left side of my blog site, or here: Tucson/Borderlands YAV Site 

 

Whether or not you can give/have given financially, thank you for your love and support!

 

Thanks from the Tucson YAVs! Under our Día de los Muertos face paint, that's me, Heather, and Amy Beth. Without your support, we would not have been able to experience this Mexican/Central American cultural tradition Tucson-style!

 

 

Switching gears to the actual work on the ground... 

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a young man who grew up in my home church who I had not connected with much over the years, but now he is a freshman in college! How life flies. Anyways, he told me he had to do a speech about border control and immigration, and as he knew I was down here working on the border, he wanted to ask me a few questions. As if I'm some sort of expert - I certainly do not feel like an expert, but I am very flattered!

 

The legal framework surrounding immigration policy is the second most complicated body of law in the United States, second only to our tax code. In my short time here, I can now definitively say immigration law is not a career path I intend to venture into, and I'm even more grateful to those who do dedicate their lives to it! All I can do is give some thoughts on my experience and point him towards some more resources and questions to research, but I took a bit of time to answer as comprehensively as I could (while boiling down the main points, and I'm sure oversimplifying an unimaginably complex issue), and I felt like sharing what I wrote with you all in case you are wondering about some of the things that are going on in my head these days within the broader national picture on immigration.

As for the three questions this young mind asked me to cover, here's a summary: what I'm doing at BorderLinks, three points to focus on in the speech, and why people want more or less control on the border. You may have seen or thought about some of these topics or points of view before, but here's everything in the neatest package I could tie up for you. Here goes!

At BorderLinks, I say that I am part social media master, part Program Organizer. I am in charge of maintaining our Facebook, blog, and website, as well as helping with some event planning, hosting workshops, and community outreach. On the Program Organizer side, in mid-November I will start leading delegations to show people the reality of the Borderlands by having groups meet with various community partners as well as cross the border to Mexico if they can do that. Our main goal is to create space for people to learn and reflect about the border and migration, and then hopefully inspire people to use their knowledge when they go back home.

Just a note, I approach this subject purely from a U.S.-Mexico border standpoint and primarily looking at migration from our neighbors to the south. However, there are other people as well that are coming from other countries, through our southern border or other ways, perhaps even on a temporary visa and then overstaying that visa to effectively become undocumented in the U.S. Also, I am focusing more on actual trends of immigration and border militarization than what's going on in the U.S. once people are here undocumented. If you want me to go into that, I can :-)

Three things I would recommend focusing on:

1) Strategy of deterrence. President Clinton politically needed to "get tough on immigration," so he was advised to expand the wall that started under Pres. H. W. Bush. First, the wall covered urban areas because they were the easiest to sneak through and blend into the crowd, and then people started going around, so the wall kept growing. The point was to make it so tough for people to cross that they would tell people back home, and fewer people would cross. But people kept going around the wall, and eventually the trend is that the wall is most lax around the Arizona desert, but people kept coming, and then they started dying in the desert. The government's intent was to make it so hard for people to cross that they wouldn't try anymore, but since people are still coming, in 2011 they started criminalizing immigration violations and detaining people for months instead of simply deporting them. This program called Operation Streamline exists in several cities, and at least in the Tucson sector, 70 people are arbitrarily chosen to get streamlined and criminally processed every single day within a span of a half hour to 1.5 hours. Sentences range from 30 days to 6 months in detention. The point is to look at the strategy of deterrence and how effective it is. 

 

2) Along those lines, with our current border enforcement strategy, are we really keeping out or punishing the people we want to keep out or punish with our criminal justice system? The Obama administration said they would target people who are considered "threats to society" for detention and deportation, but is that what has really happened? (Check out articles below)

3) In my mind, our approach to border security and immigration policy needs to address the root causes of immigration. What factors lead people to leave their homelands to face life or death, extortion, sexual violence, etc. countless times perhaps on top of trains from Central America, throughout migration routes in Mexico, across the border with a smuggler, and days of walking in the desert?


More control:

People are being smuggled across the border, drugs are being smuggled across the border, cartel violence south of our border affects the borderlands and spills over the border. And it is indeed a threat to national security to not know who all is living in your country. There are many economic arguments as well, such as undocumented immigrants are a drain on our social services and undercut our labor system by being willing to work in poorer conditions for less wages. Because people, drugs, and other things we don't want in our country keep coming across the border, the argument is to step up enforcement and pour more resources to stop these things from coming across. It would be helpful to research arguments around immigration and reform in general to know why people want to step up enforcement.

Less control:

I would perhaps think of this as more effective use of resources. When we look at the root causes of migration, we could instead try to work with sending countries to provide more economic opportunities and peaceful conditions so people wouldn't flee their homelands. Also, if we stopped targeting people who's only offense was crossing the border, we could shift resources from apprehending and deporting those people and also from paying detention centers to catching and prosecuting people who actually have committed crimes such as rape, murder, extortion, smuggling, etc.

One worrisome trend is the collaboration between local police and federal immigration authorities, which gets labeled "polimigra," police-migra (or border authorities) through the federal Secure Communities program. Especially in Arizona, state law SB 1070 makes it legal for local authorities to ask for documentation under reasonable suspicion, but police are in fact not required to either ask for documentation or call border patrol. However, the law is often abused, and people are pulled over for routine traffic stops and asked for their documentation, and if they are discovered to be undocumented, border patrol is called, people are held for longer than it is actually legal, and they are often deported. Many deportations happen as a result of routine traffic violations, and further, the trend is that people who are undocumented do not want to report an accident or crime for fear of being asked their status and then being deported.

Another aspect to think about is the environmental impacts. The wall not only tries to stop people, but it actively prevents many birds, plants, and animals from their natural roaming patterns. Additionally, the wall's construction disturbs the environment around it, and Border Patrol vehicles often go off-road and destroy the habitat in the process. Here's the Sierra Club Borderlands page if that helps: http://www.sierraclub.org/borderlands/

I would also like to point you towards a few good articles I've come across that could help, and since we're an educational organization, I have plenty more - just ask if you want more!

Check out this article from the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/not-one-more.html?_r=0. This obviously does not represent the opinion of everyone on the border or in the immigration debate, but it does encompass what a lot of people are looking for from the Borderlands.

Here is a comprehensive look at Congress' "Bed mandate" that perpetuates the system of criminalization and incarceration:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-26/congresss-illegal-immigration-detention-quota-costs-2-billion-a-year 

 

Here is another good look at militarization of the border - Todd Miller writes for Witness for Peace and also is on our BorderLinks board, which is a cool connection since I also used to work for Witness for Peace and am still involved as well.

http://www.witnessforpeace.org/article.php?id=1364

Hope that is helpful and all makes sense! If you have more thoughts or questions or want more resources, please do not hesitate to let me know. I am happy to help! 

 

All the best,

Kathryn

Tucson: Immigrant-Welcoming City

This post is an update regarding the three Tucson community members, Arturo, Agustin, and Rosa, who were taken into ICE custody on October 8th despite peaceful protest from Southside Presbyterian Church members and the broader Tucson community. Here is my previous blog post on this topic if you want a refresher: Ni Una Mas Continued. Thankfully, all three of them were soon thereafter released on bond! They are still waiting about the details of their cases, however. In the meantime, they can be with their families and go back to work. 

Additionally, these three can advocate for the undocumented community that continues to live in fear of simple infractions that lead to polimigra cooperation and deportation. You can read about some of the follow-up here: October 21st follow-up article. This time, the Tucson community decided to exercise their rights to have their voices be heard at a public forum with the City Council. 

The word went around to gather the community on October 22nd, so Amy Beth and I went to show our support. Steph wanted to go, especially because she was part of the spontaneous non-violent protest (Fuera Polimigra is about our experience with the incident), but she could not get back from work in Florence in time, so we helped recap the meeting for her when we got home. 

I can honestly say I've never been to a City Council meeting before! The idealist in me was excited to see the community and its democratically elected leaders working together, and I hoped something would come of this more than disgruntled activists voices finding a space to vent and then being forgotten. Many waited outside City Hall in anticipation, and we've discovered you get to see a few of the same faces taking time out of their lives to do justice work.

The media is here too!

Delicate shadows befall the center of the city at 5pm.

When it was time to enter, community members passed one-by-one through a metal detector and bag search, for our safety of course. Amy Beth and I walked through the double doors past security and into the hall just as a prayer for actions under good conscious was beginning. I at first wondered if that was because many of the community members were from Southside Presbyterian to support their fellow community members who do not have what is considered proper authorization to exist in this country, however, I soon learned it is customary. Customary? Customary to have prayer in one religious tradition when we purport to abide by religious freedom through the Bill of Rights for all?

Separation-of-church-and-state commentary aside, the room filled despaciadamente, gradually, after the prayer and Pledge of Allegiance as people got out of work. Hey Amy Beth! (She's in the blond ponytail and black shirt).

I just kept sneaking photos as the City Council went through their usual business.

For a while the audience was mainly members of the allied community, and I was worried members of the affected community would not be able to or would be afraid to come. But they are amazingly "undocumented and unafraid," and eventually filled the room with members from the Southside Worker Center and Corazon de Tucson (community organizations that provide networks of support for day laborers and families of varying immigration statuses)!

In the back row sat Arturo, one of the men taken into custody on October 8th, and his family.

Hey Miquitzli! He's in the green shirt and one of the main organizers at the Southside Worker Center.

After the City Council got through what they had to, the mayor made an announcement: "I think most people here tonight for the call to the audience, so I will extend the call to the audience to one hour." He went out of his way to recognize the time and presence of all here to speak directly to City Council about their concerns for the community. Three minutes per person is not a lot of time, but it keeps things moving and ensures fairness to all who submitted their name ahead of time. Another note of appreciation, this City Council was basically gender balanced! 

Various cameras stayed perpetually pointed towards the podium when it became time for the community to speak. This young woman was first on the docket, saying, "I have always thought of Tucson as a welcoming city to all people," and demanding an end to the polimigra and attacks on brown people.

Next, this woman spoke of her plight as an occupier. Her home was foreclosed on in 2011, and she has been occupying it since. She appealed to City Council's authority and purpose to represent the wellbeing of the community, which she certainly did not think was happening, especially with regard to the transitory lives of many of Tucson's people of lower socioeconomic status.

Another group with members interspersed throughout the lineup wanted to hold the City Council accountable for its first plan to turn a private golf course into a family golf center. This group argued that since the initial plans had been made, different deals have taken place without public knowledge that would instead increase gentrification instead of opening the course up to the public. And it was fascinating who all put in their two cents about the October 8th incident and the collaboration between local police and immigration authorities. 

An immigration law professor added his legal knowledge and perspective to the incident at Southside, saying he had talked to the prior police chief before Chief Villaseñor, and with this new chief, he has work to do. This professor emphasized that the "show me your papers" part of SB 1070 section that requires local police to ask people to provide legal documentation has qualifiers, such as "reasonable suspicion" and "as practicable" so as to not hinder the processing of the original offense. The language in SB 1070 gives local police considerable discretion as to investigate someone's immigration status and further call Border Patrol or ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). And beyond that, as I've mentioned in prior blog entries, police need to have a reason other than immigration status first, such as traffic stops or another violation of law, and they are only allowed to hold the person as long as it would normally take to process the other offense, not any longer to purposely wait for Border Patrol. Consequently, the professor called for an investigation into not only policy, but also practices and procedures within the police force that will be in conformity with Tucson being an immigrant-welcoming city.

The room stood up to cheer when one of the victims of the October 8th incident was called to the podium. Arturo brought his family, and he brought the room to tears.

Another mother from Corazon de Tucson filmed on her iPad, and I snuck around to get photos from the front.

Rosa, the community member who was swept off the sidewalk for just being present outside Southside on October 8th, is here in the blue shirt next to another woman from Corazon de Tucson and Agustin, also detained that night.

Arturo captivated the room in Spanish and the interpretation of his words in English. He explained how he did not understand why the police questioned him when he was simply the passenger. Agustin was the driver of the van without a front license plate light, so he should have been given a ticket y nada mas. But Agustin's documentation status was questioned, and then his passenger, Arturo's, which is quite against the law. And that's just the legal piece.

"We want united families... I hope you look at my children and see the face of America because they are citizens... We must protect families," he pleaded with the City Council, appealing to their hearts and minds alike.

Members of the community...

 ... and members of the press took it all in.

And then the room rose in support.

... Except for one man. He used his three minutes to speak about welcoming illegal aliens as an illegal act (his language, not mine by choice), which in a room full of day laborers and their friends and family, was a rather unpopular sentiment. Another community member 
 They got their three minutes like everyone else through this public process. 

From the Worker Center, Augustin was next up. He was the one who was actually driving the car with the missing front license plate light which catalyzed this whole incident. "I know I'm driving without a license, but so are others... Regarding this law, I ask for discretion. Just stop us, give us a ticket, and stop separating our families," he pleaded. 

"The precedence of Tucson should be to soften city presence so that it supports, not represses... Supports the homeless and undocumented workers... This community is directly affected by deportations. I have so much anger because I am a religious person, and I believe God created this world for all of us to enjoy it."

This student was present on October 8th and said she was a witness to police brutality along with other students, churchgoers, and community members. She declared definitively, "Traffic stops should never result in deportation and separation of families," which ellicited a roaring applause. 

This woman was at Southside and demonstrated how her arm was twisted forcefully by police. "This was a meeting of Southsiders, 50-85 years old..." She told of one woman who is battling cancer and was wearing a scarf over her head, and she was thrown to the ground. She emphasized "These are choices we can make... We can separate the police from Border Patrol... This happened to white people, just imagine what happens to peope with darker skin out in the desert..."

And then a mother and member of Corazon de Tucson came up with her adorable daughters. She tearfully shared how she and her daughters were testigos a esa violencia, witnesses to that violence. Her children asked her, "Why are they [the police] taking your friend? What did she do?" And this mother had to simultaneously scan the entire crowd to confirm that none of them had anything that could hurt anyone, and the only way she could respond to her daughters' fear was to shield them and respond, "I don't know."

"Tucson es una ciudad amigable a inmigrantes" - "Tucson is a city friendly to immigrants" repeated many of those who testified. 

This Samaritan preached about why people are coming, touching on many topics BorderLinks tries to open a space to discuss: NAFTA, federal policy, civil rights, international human rights. He concluded, "'Just following orders' is not good enough for me."

"I was standing 20 feet from the incident. I saw them ask a brown woman for her papers. They didn't ask me for my papers... I saw police pepper spray women my age and older and push them to the ground... I pray to the God of justice who stands with the oppressed, and I think we need to be careful which side we're standing on."

And then Raul came up to introduce fellow organizer and activist Leilani, who in rapid syllables recounted her experience and showed a well-publicized picture of her being pepper sprayed in the face from four feet away. Quoting Dr. King, she said we had a moral responsibility to stand up to unjust laws. She advocated a practice of cite and release and called out the officers for wasting resources and pepper spray - community members acted peacefully and were in fact leaving the scene when they were pepper sprayed without warning. "I also demand an end to police brutality. That's always wrong! ...An immigrant-welcoming city cannot enforce 1070, there's no two ways around that."

Last up was Rosa Leal, wife of Eleazar, and they are one of the world's most adorable couples. "I was only picked up because I'm Hispana. A driver's license isn't a legal document? That's all my information, you don't need anything else... Stop this polimigra, stop the deportations!"

People of all causes were welcome to their three minutes to voice their thoughts to City Council, and while there were a couple other groups talking about different development projects, this man went up by himself to advocate for the legalization of marijuana, saying marijuana usage is a victimless crime and arresting young people especially just throws their lives away. Billions of dollars go towards drug arrests/busts which overwhelmingly targets minorities and young people. 

Meanwhile, Raul worked to organize a group photo. 

"Ni una mas!"

And then Raul was interviewed and translated for several of the affected family members.

Celebrities for justice! 

There you have it. These were just my attempts at grassroots journalism, and here's a real article! Activists Ask Tucson City Council to Change Enforcement of SB1070

Just a few days ago, police chief Villaseñor was interviewed by Channel 4, saying, "'I don't agree with SB 1070. But that doesn't mean I get to say I'm not going to enforce it, because then I don't stand for anything...' We asked Villasenor, 'If you could re-write the law, how would you?' He replied, 'Well, I wouldn't involve local law enforcement. It's not our purview, that's a responsibility of federal government.' Villasenor has repeatedly said he thinks SB 1070 puts local cops in a tough spot." Check out the full article here: TPD Chief fires back on immigration law.
 
Since, on November 8th, another member of the Southside Worker Center has been taken into ICE custody, and actions are happening this week to call for his release. Because us YAVs were in San Francisco for the weekend, I have less knowledge about this case, but this keeps happening to the Tucson community because Villaseñor will continue to enforce the law as he think it should be enforced.  

This Wednesday, members of the Tucson community are once again going to speak with the City Council about continued collaboration between the local police and immigration authorities. I'll keep you posted on what becomes of those talks!

Dwelling

Since I last published on this blog, I have been writing. I've started and left unfinished several trains of thought that I desperately want to finish and share with you. They threaten to burst out of me, but the collective is so large it's overwhelming and I don't even know where to start. The thing is, all of my experiences in Tucson have been so life-giving that I keep drinking in more, that I keep breathing in more without adequate time to reflect, write, and share.

I process best through writing. That's not to say I'm a great writer, it just means I am healthiest when I judiciously choose each individual word and its place because words have meaning, and looking back at my experiences, I want to know I spent the time to express each thought as fully as I could. I still want to tell you all about Operation Streamline, about immigration "reform," about my program's time on our own border delegation in Mexico, about Tucson's way of celebrating Day of the Dead, but that is still to come, I promise.

This weekend us Tucson YAVs have been invited to San Francisco Theological Seminary's Inquirer's Weekend. We are here to learn about the programs and environment the seminary has to offer, and to begin the process of discernment about future careers and the graduate education we would potentially need. Many from our program through the Presbyterian Church (USA) will go on to seminary, and these couple days are foothills to that mountainous path if we feel so called. For Heather, Amy Beth, and I, some sort of theological education or deep church connection runs in our lineage. My momma was ordained towards the beginning of the time frame when it was revolutionary for women to do so (and humans are still in the middle of that time frame), and I think of her often here, especially thinking about her work as a prison chaplain before I was born, as the other man here for Inquirer's Weekend has been doing prison counseling in Texas - phew!

When I sat down with paper in front of me yesterday morning, I was supposed to be devoting my full attention to our brief orientation, but phrases connected to our life in the desert spilled out as doodles in the beautifully arranged and tabbed binder complete with resources for the weekend and beyond. Perhaps all I needed was a change of scenery. And a good night's sleep.

I don't really know what this is, kind-of poetry, kind-of spoken word but written? I cannot claim a culture or upbringing or any sort of education around spoken word, but I imagine the syllables caressing my tongue, spitting out as rapid-fire as my audience could take it, and leaving spaces. Spaces to breathe. Spaces to dwell.

Here we have been called to dwell in God's words. 

And we are dwelling in the beauty of God's creation. 
Changing leaves. 
Hills. 
Fog. 
Micro-climates. 

And it calls me to remember the beauty of the desert that used to take my breath away six times daily, that perhaps I now have gotten too accustomed to, or grown complacent with. 

I have gotten so busy with daily life in the desert and have these amazing experiences all rolling around in my head of the vast world, but my focus gets buried in my bike frame and a street-level panorama.

Responsibility takes me out of the clouds and grounds me, but every so often I need to dance in the sky;

leap from star to star;

dance in the rain! 
when it appears...

What I really want to do is push those pedals until a streetlight stops me and breathe and reflect and soak and dwell. And later write. My head is super-saturated, but my body needed rest. 

In this time of reflection that I can share with you all, I pray that I will never forget those who will may never see the beauty of the desert as I have, and those who face more of the dangers of the desert than I ever will. 

Those who face the sticks and spines of more than just cacti and cholla and burrs, but of polleros, Border Patrol, and barbed wire.

Those who crawl in silence through the deep night in more than just el desierto, but also through the shadows of life without the right kind of documents and the right kind of language. 

Those who are injected with more than just poison of rattlesnakes but of loss, desperation, racism, and repeated discrimination. 

When we return to Tucson, I pray that I will never forget to appreciate the expansive sky and think of all those who journey under it. I pray that I will never forget God who makes the stars twinkle, who touches the horizons, who touches my heart and calls me to walk in Jesus' footsteps to, in some small way, use my life to walk with others out of their time of darkness, however that is manifested. 

Until next time friends.


The passage preached and reflected on this week: Colossians 3:12-17
So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God every step of the way.

Rainbow Defense Fund

Through BorderLinks, I have connected with the Southside Worker Center. This is one of the ministries of Southside Presbyterian Church that organizes and fights for the rights of mainly male, undocumented day laborers. One of their main activists, Raul Alcaraz Ochoa, has recognized the need for education around issues of sexism and homophobia, so he and other volunteers have been doing workshops for the past couple of years to shift attitudes in a historically macho environment. In conjunction with the Worker Center's Protection Network that supports the families if a worker is detained, Raul, himself a young gay man, has started this initiative called the Rainbow Defense Fund to support immigrants who may be doubly oppressed by the shadows of the undocumented life and the LGBTQ closet.

"The Rainbow Defense Fund seeks to raise funds for the bond release of migrant prisoners in immigration detention centers in Florence, Arizona. Due to the high rate of systemic abuse and discrimination towards LGBTQ detainees, support and solidarity are critical to ending the plight of our LGBTQ friends in immigration detention." Florence is a city outside of Phoenix whose economy is mainly supported by its four detention centers, including both state and for-profit prisons. It seems most immigrants detained in Tucson end up there.

Especially for my St. Luke readers, this is a project I feel meets St. Luke missions for both immigration and LGBTQ justice. The current need is that the Rainbow Defense Fund is working its hardest to raise $30,000 by the end of October to potentially bond out eight gay and transgender workers who have been in detention for over six months and have therefore qualified for bond hearings. That would allow these migrant prisoners to be released to work and be with their families until their final court ruling, and in many cases where undocumented immigrants fight deportation, they actually have a chance if they have no other criminal charges! If you would consider supporting the Rainbow Defense Fund in any way, that would be so appreciated! If you are not able to give financially but still want to support their work, please tell a friend. Their website is rainbowdefensefund.wordpress.com if you'd like to check it out, and donations can be made there or to The Rainbow Defense Fund, 127 N. Palomas Ave., Tucson, AZ 85745.