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Calaruga Shark Media. Three months after Alligator Alcatraz was bulldozed
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back into the swamp it never should have left. I
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got a phone call from Tommy Esperanza. Now I hadn't
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expected to hear from Tommy again. Last time I'd seen him.
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He was walking away from the ruins of that detention
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center with his freedom papers in his pocket, and the
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whole world opened up in front of him. Man had
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every right to disappear into a normal life, find a
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quiet job somewhere, and pretend that those four weeks in
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the Everglades had been nothing but a bad dream. But
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that ain't the call I got. Bo Tommy said, I've
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been thinking about what you said that last night, about
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how the real escape is turning your prison into something
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worth staying for. I remember, I said, well, I found
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another prison that needs transforming. You see, Tommy had been
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offered a job, not just any job, but a position
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with a federal Immigration Legal Aid Coalition, a network of
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lawyers and advocates who had been created in response to
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the corruption scandal that Elena's evidence had exposed. They wanted
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Tommy to be what they called a facility liaison specialist,
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which was a fancy way of saying. They wanted him
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to go into detention centers across the country and teach
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people how to navigate the system, organize communities, and transform
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impossible situations into opportunities for justice. It was exactly the
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kind of work that most people would run from, voluntarily
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returning to the world of immigration detention, working with bureaucrats
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and administrators, dealing with the daily heartbreak of families or
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apart by policies designed to break their spirits. But Tommy
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saw it different than he saw it as a chance
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to plant seeds. This is episode six Freedom Papers. The
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first facility they sent Tommy to was a place called
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Riverside Detention Center in South Texas, another hastily constructed facility
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that was already falling apart six months after it opened.
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According to the reports Tommy read on the drive down,
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Riverside was everything Alligator Alcatraz had been, except bigger and
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more efficient at separating families. Twelve hundred people housed in
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buildings that were designed for eight hundred processing quotas that
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required administrators to move people through the system faster than
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anyone could track where they were going. The kind of
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place where people disappeared into bureaucratic chaos, and families spent
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months trying to find each other. Tommy arrived at Riverside
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on a Monday morning with nothing but a Duffel bag,
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an official letter of introduction, and four weeks of experience
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turning disasters into communities. What he found was exactly what
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he'd expected. Overcrowded housing units, administrative staff overwhelmed by paperwork
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they didn't understand, and hundreds of people who'd given up
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hope that anything could be done to improve their situation.
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It was Alligator Alcatraz all over again, except without the alligators.
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But Tommy also found something else, three people who'd been
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transferred from Alligator Alcatraz before its closure and who'd been
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quietly trying to recreate what they'd learned in the swamp.
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Maria Santos was there with her son David, both of
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them waiting for their asylum hearing while helping other families
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navigate the family reunification process. Louis Morales was teaching people
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about organizing food distribution and resolving conflicts between different cultural groups,
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and Elena Vasquez was there too, working with the Legal
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Aid Coalition to identify cases where detention orders might be
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based on fraudulent documentation. Tommy's community hadn't been scattered by
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the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. It had been dispersed to
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spread what they'd learned to new places. The work at
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Riverside was different from what Tommy had done in the
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Everglades because this time he had official authorization and external support.
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He wasn't operating underground. He was working with the facility
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administration to identify proper and develop solutions, But the fundamental
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approach was the same. Find the people who understand how
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things actually work, helped them organize around practical problems, and
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let the solutions grow from the community instead of being
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imposed from outside. Within two weeks, Tommy had identified the
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informal leaders in each housing unit, the people who were
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already helping others navigate the bureaucracy, and the folks who
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had skills and knowledge that could benefit everyone. Within a month,
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he'd helped establish what the administration called resident advisory committees,
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But what everyone understood were the governance structures for a
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community that was learning to take care of itself. The
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beautiful part was watching the facilities operations improve in ways
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that the administrators couldn't explain and couldn't take credit for
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Medical appointment that used to take weeks to schedule were
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happening within days because the resident committees had organized peer
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advocates who could help people navigate the health services bureaucracy.
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Family reunification requests that used to disappear into paperwork purgatory
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were being processed efficiently because Elena had trained people to
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understand which forms to file and how to follow up
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when the system didn't respond. Food service complaints dropped to
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nearly zero because Maria had worked with the kitchen staff
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to establish communication systems that allowed residents to provide feedback
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and suggestions without going through official complaint procedures. And conflicts
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between different cultural and language groups had virtually disappeared because
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Luish had helped establish translation networks and conflict resolution procedures
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that addressed problems before they became crises. The administration was
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delight with these improvements, even though they had no idea
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how they were happening. But the real test of Tommy's
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approach came when Riverside faced its own crisis. Four months
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after Tommy arrived, federal investigators announced that they were expanding
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their immigration detention fraud investigation to include facilities in Texas.
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Riverside was one of twelve detention centers that were going
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to be audited for contractor fraud, financial irregularities, and operational violations.
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The facilities administrators panicked. They'd been taking credit for the
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operational improvements that Tommy's community organizing had created, but they
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had no idea how to maintain those improvements if their
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staffing and budgets were cut during the investigation. More importantly,
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they were terrified that the investigation would reveal their own
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way roles in the kinds of financial irregularities that had
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brought down the administrators at Alligator Alcatraz. That's when Tommy
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made a proposal that changed everything about how immigration detention
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facilities operated. Instead of trying to hide problems or shift
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blame to others, Tommy suggested that Riverside cooperate fully with
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the investigation and use it as an opportunity to demonstrate
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how detention facilities could be run efficiently, humanly, and transparently.
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His idea was simple, turned the audit into a showcase
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for community based detention management. The resident advisory committees that
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Tommy had helped establish would work directly with federal investigators
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to document how the facility actually operated, what problems existed,
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and what solutions had been developed through community organizing. Instead
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of treating detainees as potentials, security risks, or administrative burdens,
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Riverside would demonstrate that people in detention could be partners
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in creating safe, efficient, and humane living conditions. It was
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a radical idea, using an investigation that was supposed to
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expose corruption as an opportunity to model what immigration detention
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could look like when it was designed around human dignity
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instead of bureaucratic convenience. The results of Tommy's experiment exceeded
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everyone's expectations, including his own. The federal audit of Riverside
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became the first immigration detention investigation that actually resulted in
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commendations instead of indictments. Investigators found that the facility was
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operating under budget, with lower recidivince rates, fewer medical emergencies,
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and higher rates of successful family reunification than any comparable
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facility in the federal system. More importantly, they found that
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these improvements had been achieved not through increased funding or
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additional staffing, but through community organizing and resident participation in
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facility management. The resident advisory committees had identified operational problems
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that the administration had never noticed and developed solutions that
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were more effective and less expensive than anything bureaucrats could
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have designed. Elena's Legal aid work had reduced the average
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length of detention by helping people understand their cases and
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navigate the immigration court system more efficiently. Maria's Family Services
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Coordination had reunited more families in six months than most
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facilities managed in two years. And Luish's conflict reads solution
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programs had created a community environment where people from dozens
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of different countries and cultures were working together instead of
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against each other. The audit report concluded that Riverside Detention
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Center represented a breakthrough model for humane and efficient immigration
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detention that should be replicated at facilities nationwide. Tommy's approach
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to community organizing had been officially recognized as federal best
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practices for immigration detention management, but the most important recognition
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came from somewhere else Entirely. In six months after the
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Riverside audit, Tommy received a letter that changed his understanding
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of what he'd accomplished at Alligator Alcatraz. The letter was
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from David Santos Maria's son, who was now eighteen years
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old and attending college in Florida on a scholarship he'd
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received through a program for asylum seekers. David wrote that
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he'd been thinking about what he wanted to study, and
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that his experience at Alligator Alcatraz had convinced him to
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pursue a degree in public administration with a focus on
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immigration policy. You taught me something that I'll never forget,
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David wrote. You taught me that systems only seem permanent
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until someone shows you how to change them. And you
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taught me that the people who are affected by bad
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policies are often the ones who understand best how to
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fix them. David wasn't the only one who'd been inspired
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to continue the work that had started in the swamp.
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Luis had enrolled in a community college program in environmental
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science with plans to work on sustainable development projects in
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immigrant communities. Maria had been hired by a family reunification
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organization to train other facilities in community baced family services coordination.
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Elena had been appointed to a federal task force on
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immigration detention reform, where she was using her insider knowledge
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to redesign the policies that had once been used to
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destroy families, and Old Pete, wonderful Old Pete who taught
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everyone how to read the currents and navigate dangerous waters.
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Pete had been hired by a legal aid organization to
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train advocates in understanding bureaucratic systems and finding pressure points
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where small changes could have big effects. The community that
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had been built in four weeks at Alligator Alcatraz was
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now spread across the entire immigration system, transforming it from
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the inside through the simple principle that people deserve to
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be treated with dignity and given opportunities to solve their
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own problems. Two years after Alligator Alcatraz was demolished, Tommy
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got a call that brought the whole story full circle.
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The Department of Homeland Security wanted to hire him, not
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as a detainee or a person being processed through the system,
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but as a senior advisor on detention facility operations and
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community engagement strategies. They offered him an office in Washington,
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a six figure salary, and the opportunity to shape immigration
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policy at the highest levels of the federal government. It
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was everything that most people would consider success recognition, authority,
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financial security, and the chance to influence the system that
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had once tried to destroy him. Tommy turned it down. Why,
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Elena asked when he told her about the offer they'd
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been having dinner at a restaurant in San Antonio, where
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Elena was now based as the regional coordinator for the
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Federal Immigration Legal Aid Coalition, Because Tommy said, that's not
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where the real work happens. Tommy explained that he'd learned
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something important during his time at Riverside and the other
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facilities where he'd been working. The changes that mattered most
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weren't the ones that came from Washington policy directives or
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administrative reforms. They were the changes that happened when people
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in impossible situations learned that they didn't have to accept
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impossibility as permanent. I can help one person at a
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time learn how to navigate the system, Tommy said. Or
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I can help communities learn how to change the system.
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But I can't do both from an office in Washington,
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Elena smiled. So what's next? Tommy had been thinking about
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that question for months. His work with the Legal Aid
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Coalition had taken him to detention facilities across the country,
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and he'd seen the same patterns everywhere, overcrowded conditions, bureaucratic confusion,
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and people who'd given up hope that anything could be improved.
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But he'd also seen something else, the incredible capacity of
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ordinary people to solve extraordinary problems when they were given
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the opportunity in support to work together. Tommy's next project
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was ambitious in its simplicity. He wanted to create a
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training program that would teach community organizing and system navigation
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skills to people in immigration detention across the country, not
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as a government program or charitable service, but as a
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peer to peer education network run by people who'd learned
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through experience how to transform impossible situations into opportunities for justice.
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The program Tommy created was called the Community Resilience Network,
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and it was everything that bureaucrats fear most effective, inexpensive,
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and impossible to control. The idea was elegant. People who
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successfully navigated the immigration system would return to detention facilities
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to teach others how to organize communities, advocate for their rights,
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and work with legal aid organizations to resolve their cases efficiently.
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Elena provided the legal expertise and policy knowledge. Maria coordinated
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family services and cultural mediation training. Luis taught sustainable community
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development and conflict resolution, and Old Pete, ever patient. Old
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Pete taught people how to read systems and understand how
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power or actually flows through bureaucratic organizations. But the heart
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of the program was something that couldn't be taught in
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workshops or written in manuals, the understanding that dignity is
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not something that systems can grant or take away, but
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something that people create for themselves through the way they
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treat each other. Within a year, the Community Resilience Network
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was operating in forty three detention facilities across twelve states.
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Average detention times were dropping, family reunification rates were increasing,
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and facility administrators were reporting improvements in safety, health, and
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morale that they couldn't explain through their official programs. More importantly,
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people who completed the network's training were carrying that knowledge
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with them when they were released, creating a generation of
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immigrant rights advocates who understood the system from the inside
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and knew how to help others navigate it successfully. Tommy
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had achieved something that no government program or policy reform