"It's an inhuman system": Francisco Cantú, former border services officer who now helps immigrants

For five years, Francisco Cantú was a Border Services Officer in Arizona and Texas. After losing his trust in what he was going through, he left the service and became a critic of the harsh immigration policies.. To counteract these actions He preferred to put himself on the other side and help immigrants in detention centers. "Day after day, I've seen stories of humble people who are always portrayed as criminals," he warns.

Two years after leaving the border patrol, Francisco Cantú, motivated by the feeling of being part of a policy "that dehumanizes the migrant", one of his best friends was arrested by agents of the Immigration and Customs Service (ICE) and taken to detention centers in the state of Arizona.

His friend, José Martínez, a Mexican father settled in this country for thirty years, has not even been able to receive the visit of his wife, also undocumented. Cantú decided to help him to deal with a migration system that he describes as "violent" and that he did not know until then.

"That really touched me. I did not know this side of the system, I had never appeared before an immigration court. My experience was only to catch undocumented people in the desert; look for them and bring them to a small processing center located at the station, "said Cantu. Univision News, during a recent visit to Los Angeles.

Cantu wore the olive green uniform of the Border Patrol in Arizona and Texas between 2008 and 2012. He entered the agency at the age of 23, happy to follow in the footsteps of his mother, who was at the service of the rangers.. But under the hot sun and the cold nights of the desert, he discovered that he was applying laws that he did not like.

He recounted that he had had nightmares when he shot at the migrants or found corpses dismembered by the narcos. I was already traumatized, but only saw a body in one of his paths.

When he was offered a fellowship in the Netherlands to study asylum policies, he did not hesitate a second and handed over his agent registration plate. immigration. Make sure he does not regret. "I saw a very inhuman system. After a while, I did not want to be part of the policy that dehumanizes the migrant. Day after day, I've seen stories of the humble people that they always show as criminals. The reality is that they are in a humanitarian situation and not in crime, "said Cantu.

Last March, more than 150,600 migrants were arrested in the areas of Yuma and Tucson, Arizona. Of these, almost 6,500 were unaccompanied minors, according to the statistics of the Customs and Border Control (CBP).

The fear of Cantu is that smugglers take advantage of this situation, which he considers the result of "deplorable" policies.

"The intensity and dehumanization of border controls are actually used to recruit more people to cross, telling them: (They should travel north) "before the situation worsens," he said at a conference on border challenges at the Los Angeles Times book fair, which 39, held at the University of Southern California (USC). ) this weekend.

Visit ICE detainees and feed migrants

Cantu came to the event to talk about his book The line becomes a river (the border becomes a river) It has been a few weeks since the printing press left the press after more than a year of reading online.

The third chapter of his work tells the story of his friend José Martinez, whom he visited in the ICE detention centers in Florence and Eloy, Arizona. Martinez, the father of three Americans, was the subject of an eviction proceedings just two years after Cantu's departure from the Border Patrol.

The first time he saw him in the controversial prison of Eloy, where he also faced for the first time "the immensity of the deportation system".

"I took his children to see him, his wife could not go to the detention center because she is undocumented", lamented Cantu. "It was not a big problem for me to help them, I had some knowledge of the system, I knew how to know when and where I would appear in immigration court," she said. he explained.

Finally, ICE decided to deport Martinez to Mexico. Cantú and he met again in Nogales, in the state of Sonorawhen the migrant was about to return illegally to join his family in Arizona. There, the Mexican agreed to share his experience, which was told in the first person of the book.

"I know I'm breaking the law, but it's necessary, my family is there," Martínez told the former customs officer. "At the same time, these laws have a negative impact on me (…) the government separates us," he added.

"You see the same people with the utmost dedication to their families who are beginning to build a history of deportations and they have more and more problems with the government; it becomes increasingly difficult for them to legalize themselves. In this way, the United States catalogs as criminals those who can be its best citizens, "explained the migrant.

The former border official said his friend "stays in touch with his family" but does not specify where he is now.

"We are facing a real humanitarian crisis, I think we are not talking enough about the hundreds of people who die each year at the border," he said.

According to Cantu, since he stopped monitoring the demarcation line separating Mexico from the United States, he has not stopped helping his childhood friends and family. other undocumented immigrants arrested by ICE.

He says one of them is an immigrant from Durango whom he met in Arizona because he was the owner of a Mexican restaurant where he had the chance to stay. used to have breakfast when he was high school student. This man has spent 30 years of his life in this country.