Day 4 - Desert ICE

TRIP TO THE BORDER:   Day 4 -  ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)        

BorderLinks Delegation

Participants:  Steve Goering, Susan Ortman Goering, John Schneider, Anne-Marie Patrie

March 11-14, 2013                                                                            

ICE

Our last presentation was from an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agent.  Rick Crocker acknowledged that he was apprehensive about meeting with us.  He has worked for the Department of Homeland Security since it began in 2001.  He said nobody likes what he does.  Some feel he (ICE) should be doing more, ridding the US of all persons here without papers.  Some feel he (ICE) is cruel and heartless, going after the wrong people. 

He emphasized that HSI works primarily to protect our borders and eliminate crimes including customs fraud, child exploitation, human trafficking/slavery and smuggling – humans/drugs/weapons/currency.  In his current position, he works with the seven ports of entry in Arizona.  Primary concerns in Arizona are inbound drugs and human smuggling and outbound weapons and currency smuggling.  More drugs come into the US through Arizona ports than any others. 

Crocker stressed the violence of the drug cartels and the violence directed at the migrants (he called them illegal aliens).   “These are not nice people,” he said repeatedly.   He wanted to emphasize that part of his work: eliminating the cartels, the drug, human, and weapons trafficking, etc.

He seemed to have sympathy for the migrants, emphasizing that they are extremely vulnerable,  at the mercy of the coyotes every step of the way.  Sometimes they are abandoned in the desert; anyone who can’t keep up is simply left behind.   He also showed pictures of migrants stacked like cordwood in a drop house in Phoenix.  The migrants told stories of paying thousands of dollars to get across the border.  They were then held in the drop house while their captors called family members and attempted to extort additional money.  “If you don’t send another $3,000, we’ll beat your brother.”  And then they would proceed to do just that, beat him so the family members could hear his screams.     With women migrants, the scenario changed to rape; women, he said, expect to be raped, sometimes repeatedly. 

He understood that while there are plenty of “not nice” people, there were also hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people who are simply trying to get to a place where they can earn a living and support their families.  He agreed that the immigration quotas keep people from coming here legally; the application process for persons from Mexico  takes 15 to 20 years or so.  His wife is a naturalized citizen from Guatamala, so he understands the dilemma.

He maintained that profiling does not take place.  “The police are too busy for that,” he said.  However, we had heard so many stories of profiling, that I doubt any of us believed him.  The BorderLinks staff  agree that if the van load of people going across the border is all white, they are almost always waved through.  If there is a Hispanic person in the van, they are motioned into “secondary” which means a more extensive search of the vehicle.  Hispanic leaders of delegations typically get out of the van and walk across with their documents so the van is not subject to search.

When asked about solutions, he suggested a guest worker program, something that would allow persons to come here to work legally for periods of time.  He did not think legalizing marijuana would slow down drug trafficking and smuggling.  “This nation has an insatiable demand for drugs,” he said.

Crocker repeatedly said, in relation to the migrants, “I’m just doing my job.”   That phrase has stayed with me.  The issues are complex.  Somehow, though, we must begin to make changes.  Things can’t stay this way.  We can’t just do our jobs and ignore the pain and suffering that causes.  Maybe we need to change the job descriptions.