“I began to wonder why immigrants had to be chased like animals, and why I was being paid to chase them” says John Randolph, a former border patrol agent, in his piece at the Huffington Post last week. “‘What are we doing here? Why am I chasing these people?’, I’d ask myself.”
A couple of weeks ago, after the Obama Administration announced that it would be prioritizing immigrant deportations according to the criteria listed in ICE director John Morton’s prosecutorial discretion memo from June, I received an email in my inbox from Mr. Randolph. Written to me as a note for the DREAMers, he spoke of his experience with the immigration issue as an insider, and ended his letter with some important advice: Don’t give up. Here’s a part of the letter:
Please be advised, I am an immigration activist; I am not an immigration lawyer. That is my disclaimer because I can’t give you immigration advice. I can give you the insights that I know. I have worked in and watched immigration for over thirty five years. They [politicians] promise many things, and deliver few. That is the game they play.
You have the opportunity now to take the risk as a group, and force them to decide. Otherwise, they will do what they always do; make lots of promises, excuses, and do very little or nothing.
Organize. Go to ICE by the tens of thousands and ask for immigration hearings. You have more power than you know.
For more on John Randolph, read his piece in the Huffington Post. It’s a moving story on how he decided to go from immigration enforcer to immigration endorser.
