Have you ever had one of those days that can only be
described as “quite a day”?
We started the day at the new offices for the Border Network for Human Rights in
El Paso. BNHR is an incredibly well-organized movement from the
Latino community in the greater El Paso area. They have a comprehensive response
system when police checkpoints are set up, raids occur, or community needs are
not being met, etc. Neighborhoods are organized into Committees, which are led
by Human Rights Promoters, who coordinate with a BNHR staff person, who reports
to an executive committee. We left the offices to visit two Committees in
Montana Vista and Agua Dulce. There I witnessed some of the best grassroots
organizing I've ever seen. Despite a lack of running water or sewage in the
community due to extreme poverty, the Committee meets once a week, sometimes
with children in tow or at odd hours of the day, to hold their elected officials
accountable. I was inspired, impressed, and deeply humbled.
We had lunch with the US/Mexico Border and Immigration Task
Force, on which Emily Carey of the ACLU of
New Mexico sits. Emily discussed the ACLU-NM’s work on privacy. Other
members of the Task Force call for improved technology at the border to
facilitate crossing. The ACLU-NM advocates for transparency of this information
gathering, and notification for all people crossing the border about the
information being collected. Read more about their border work here.
Knowledge of Emily’s work comforted me later as we
toured the border and processing center at the Paso del Norte Bridge. Our
professional and friendly Border Patrol hosts took
us on a tour of the border, where they pointed out evidence of border violence
spilling over and a woman waving her arms from the bridge, presumably to let a
drug mule know it was safe to cross the water. Walking along the border, the challenges of their job were very real to me.
However, by being transparent about the information they collect, respecting
privacy rights when a person declines to answer questions at a checkpoint, or
treating detained persons with the dignity and respect a human deserves, Border
Patrol can balance US safety with freedom.