Operation Streamline (part 2)

After coming back from the Courthouse, at the Convent Lois gives us more information about Operation Streamline.
One of the most stunning things about it is that none of the magistrates (actually they are not certified judges but play that role, however participation in O.S. can be a part of climbing that ladder) she talked to really believe in it. It is clear to them as well as to almost everyone else in the courtroom, that the people being convicted and being handed down criminal records and being sent off to prison are not wrongdoers and have done nothing to deserve such treatment.
People with actual criminal records who are caught crossing the border are turned over to other courts where they face additional charges. The only offence the Streamline defendants have committed is illegally crossed the border. An overwhelming majority of them do so to look for work.
The magistrates who pass down the sentences do not actually decide on them, the prosecuting attorney and lawyers hammer out the details of who will be in which prison and for how long. The result is displayed on a plea bargain that the migrants read and sign. Lois talks about a magistrate, Jacqueline Marshall, who apologized to the people she has sentenced. After a migrant told her he is sorry for having broken border law, she told him “I am sorry you weren’t welcomed into my country”. During another court case, she broke down in tears after hearing a migrant tell her about his kids living in the U.S. Thomas Ferraro is known as a judge who is “not overtly kind, but not overtly harsh” on the migrants.

Lois shares some ugly stories of the US Justice System’s fight against the migrants. Often people who are arrested and deported are have been living and working in the US for quite some time. When they are discovered and thrown out, they sometimes leave family members behind.
One of her stories that most highlights the absurdity of the situation is that of a young man. When he was 4 years of age, his parents crossed the border illegally and took him with them. He grew up in America, went to school, and has no criminal record. He was seventeen years old when they came for him. One night he and some friends went out in a car. The driver was a teenage girl who absentmindedly borrowed the car from her grandfather without asking. The man called the police and soon the group was pulled over. After it became clear it was a misunderstanding, everyone was released- except the 17 year high school student. The police ascertained he was not a legal citizen and passed him forward to ICE. He was sentenced to 7 months in prison and did time. He has now been released and is about to be deported. He is appealing for the system to at least let him finish his high school before being thrown into a country he has not seen for over ¾ of his life.

Lois tells the story of another young man of a similar age, who was brought to the US when he was 4 months old and deported to Mexico. He does not speak Spanish, and some schools in Nogales (one of the main deportation centres, and also an extremely violent place due to the cartels) are beginning to teach bilingual programs for deportees who have little to no knowledge of Spanish.

While I understand that illegal immigration is a complex issue and those who are against it can also offer valid arguments and reasons for their positions, the criminalizing of innocent and often exploited people simply because of the fact they crossed a border in search of a better life is in my eyes vindictive and unjust. Even the people who are carrying out Streamline seem to know it. I am reminded of the first 4 verses of Isaiah 10.

Isaiah 10

1 Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
2 to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
3 What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
4 Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.

Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.


Even the powerful will have to face God's justice one day.