{"id":89,"date":"2011-09-24T10:16:36","date_gmt":"2011-09-24T17:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arroya.org\/?p=89"},"modified":"2011-10-09T00:16:06","modified_gmt":"2011-10-09T07:16:06","slug":"one-of-the-good-guys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/?p=89","title":{"rendered":"One of the Good Guys"},"content":{"rendered":"

He looked different than so many of the migrants.\u00a0 He was tall, well nourished, and was looking for a pair of jeans that fit and some clean sox.\u00a0 He did not have the small stature of the indigenous indios from Central America. And he spoke perfect English—barely an accent.\u00a0 I\u2019d guess his age to be late 20\u2019s.\u00a0 It turns out he is married, has several children, and has lived in Oxnard since he was 2 years old.\u00a0 He was picked up in California by Border Patrol, deported to Nogales, and now is determined to get back to his family.<\/p>\n

He has no police record of offenses—until now.\u00a0 If he attempts to cross the US\/Mexico border again, it is a felony. It means jail time. Our group tries to dissuade him from crossing.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t know our desert, and he intends to cross alone.\u00a0 Desperate to get home and back to work in Oxnard, he is emotional and tearful talking to our group.<\/p>\n

So what gives here??\u00a0 I keep reading about Homeland Security and its attempt to remedy situations like this.\u00a0 We should be pursuing the dangerous criminals, the drug smugglers, the \u201cterrorists\u201d, right?\u00a0 Why aren\u2019t we going after the\u00a0bad guys?\u00a0 This man is not guilty of any serious crime in the US.\u00a0 He is a working man, has a family and home, and now finds himself in a country and culture he finds foreign.\u00a0\u00a0 He is one of the good guys that should not be swept up by our Border Patrol agents.\u00a0 And he is afraid to pursue citizenship in the US because—you guessed it—he\u2019ll be deported.\u00a0 Again.\u00a0 Talk about a Catch-22.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Welcome to Nogales<\/p><\/div>\n

He carries \u201ccourt papers\u201d in a white envelope—documentation about his deportation and \u201cguilt\u201d, as he stands here in Nogales, Sonora, a country that is foreign to him.\u00a0 We tell him, if you cross and are picked up by Homeland Security, call this attorney.\u00a0 She can help you.\u00a0 You are not a criminal.\u00a0 You came here when you were a baby.\u00a0 The law is wrong.\u00a0 A few Samaritans give him phone numbers to call if he runs into trouble.<\/p>\n

I light a candle tonight for this man.\u00a0 Part of me does not want him to try and cross our desert tonight—so dangerous.\u00a0 Part of me wants him to make it home to Oxnard.\u00a0 I envision him sleeping in the bushes by the Santa Cruz River.\u00a0 I say a prayer for his safety.<\/p>\n

He is one of the good guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He looked different than so many of the migrants.\u00a0 He was tall, well nourished, and was looking for a pair of jeans that fit and some clean sox.\u00a0 He did not have the small stature of the indigenous indios from Central America. And he spoke perfect English—barely an accent.\u00a0 I\u2019d guess his age to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110,"href":"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}