Aug. 16, 2025

6. Freedom Papers

6. Freedom Papers

Three months after Alligator Alcatraz is demolished, Tommy faces his ultimate choice: disappear into a quiet life or use his hard-won knowledge to transform the entire immigration system. Joining the Federal Immigration Legal Aid Coalition, Tommy brings his community-organizing model to detention centers nationwide, reuniting with Maria, Luis, and Elena to create the Community Resilience Network. As their peer-to-peer education program spreads to 200 facilities, average detention times plummet and family reunification rates soar.

Ten years later, Tommy has trained thousands of advocates who carry the Alligator Alcatraz lessons to fights for housing, healthcare, and criminal justice reform. In Beau's final reflection, we learn that the most powerful escape isn't fleeing broken systems—it's teaching others how to fix them, one community at a time, until entire forests of change grow from seeds planted in a swamp.

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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

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could accomplish. He'd turned the immigration detention system into a

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training ground for immigration rights organizers. But the most important

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measure of success wasn't statistics or policy changes. It was letters.

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Tommy kept every letter he received from people who'd been

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part of the community Resilience network, letters from parents who'd

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been reunited with their children, from people who'd successfully navigated

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the asylum process, from families who'd found stable housing and

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employment after being released from detention. But the letters that

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meant the most were the ones from people who'd gone

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on to help others, Like the letter from Carlos Mendoza,

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who'd been reunited with his family in Phoenix and was

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now working with a church based organization to provide translation

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services and legal aid referrals to newly arrived asylum seekers.

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Or the letter from Miguel Restrepo, who'd learned from his

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failed escape attempt at Alligator Alcatraz and was now teaching

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water safety and survival skills to immigrants crossing dangerous border areas.

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Or the letter from Antonio Silva, who'd become a paralegal

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specializing in family reunification cases and had helped reconnect more

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than two hundred families that had been separated by immigration

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enforcement actions. Each letter was evidence of something that Tommy

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had understood from his first day at Alligator Alcatraz. People

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don't need to be saved by systems. They need systems

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that give them opportunities to save themselves and each other.

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The Community Resilience Network had proven that the most effective

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immigration reform wasn't new legislation or increased funding. It was

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teaching people how to work together to make existing systems

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work better. But Tommy's greatest success was also his greatest challenge.

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The network was working so well that it was threatening

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the people who profited from dysfunction. Three years after Alligator

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Alcatraz closed, Tommy faced the same choice he'd faced in

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the swamp, whether to protect what he'd built or to

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risk everything to make it bigger. The Community Resilience Network

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had become too successful to ignore. Immigration officials were asking

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questions about why certain facilities were performing so much better

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than others. Contractors were complaining that their costs were increasing

275
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because detainees were advocating for better conditions and more efficient services,

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and politicians were starting to notice that detention facilities with

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active community resilience programs were reus, uniting families faster and

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processing cases more efficiently than facilities that relied on traditional

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administrative approaches. Some of those politicians wanted to expand the

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program and make it an official part of federal immigration policy.

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Others wanted to shut it down before it spread further.

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Tommy understood that accepting official recognition would mean accepting official control.

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The Community Resilience Network worked because it was run by

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and four the people it served, not because it followed

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00:22:38.799 --> 00:22:44.680
bureaucratic guidelines and administrative procedures. But he also understood that

286
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without some kind of institutional protection, the network was vulnerable

287
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to being dismantled by officials who preferred systems that were

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easier to control, even if they were less effective at

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helping people. Elena had a salt that was typically brilliant.

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00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:08.720
Instead of choosing between official recognition and grassroots independence, they

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were going to create something that was both and neither.

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A non profit organization that could receive federal funding and

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operate in official partnerships with government agencies, but that was

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governed by people who'd experienced immigration detention and was accountable

295
00:23:25.400 --> 00:23:29.759
to the communities it served rather than to bureaucratic supervisors.

296
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It was bureaucratic jiu jitsu on a national scale, using

297
00:23:35.799 --> 00:23:39.079
the system's own desire for success stories to protect and

298
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expand a program that was fundamentally changing how the system operated.

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The Community Resilience Institute was officially launched, five years after

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Tommy first walked through the gates of Alligator Alcatraz. The

301
00:24:00.759 --> 00:24:04.160
ceremony was held at the University of Miami in a

302
00:24:04.200 --> 00:24:08.279
conference room overlooking Biscayne Bay, about fifty miles from where

303
00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:14.400
the detention center had once stood. Tommy, Elena, Maria Luis,

304
00:24:14.799 --> 00:24:18.440
and Old Pete were all there, along with dozens of

305
00:24:18.440 --> 00:24:20.720
people whose lives had been changed by the work that

306
00:24:20.799 --> 00:24:24.880
had started in a swamp. Also, there were federal officials,

307
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immigration judges, legal aid attorneys, and representatives from detention facilities

308
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:34.160
across the country who'd come to learn about the innovative

309
00:24:34.200 --> 00:24:39.240
community engagement strategies that were being recognized as national best

310
00:24:39.240 --> 00:24:44.000
practices for immigration detention management. It was exactly the kind

311
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of official recognition that Tommy had once thought was impossible,

312
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a government ceremony celebrating a program that had grown out

313
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of resistance to government policies. But the most important people

314
00:24:57.599 --> 00:25:01.599
at the ceremony weren't the officials, or the advocates or

315
00:25:01.599 --> 00:25:05.200
the academics who'd come to study the Community Resilience model.

316
00:25:06.279 --> 00:25:11.079
They were the families, parents and children who'd been reunited

317
00:25:11.119 --> 00:25:15.799
through the network's family services programs, couples who'd found each

318
00:25:15.839 --> 00:25:22.160
other after being separated by bureaucratic chaos, Communities that had

319
00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:25.759
been built in detention facilities and had continued growing after

320
00:25:25.799 --> 00:25:32.160
people were released. David Santos was there, now a graduate

321
00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:35.359
student in public policy who was writing his thesis on

322
00:25:35.480 --> 00:25:42.039
community based approaches to immigration integration. Carlos Mendoza was there

323
00:25:42.039 --> 00:25:44.920
with his wife and daughters, all of them now US

324
00:25:45.039 --> 00:25:50.279
citizens who were working with immigrant rights organizations in Arizona. Miguel,

325
00:25:50.720 --> 00:25:55.359
Jose and Antonio were there, the three men who'd tried

326
00:25:55.400 --> 00:25:59.200
to escape from Alligator Alcatraz and had learned instead how

327
00:25:59.200 --> 00:26:03.400
to transform the system that had trapped them. And dozens

328
00:26:03.440 --> 00:26:06.319
of others whose names weren't in any official reports, but

329
00:26:06.400 --> 00:26:09.559
whose stories were the real measure of what had been accomplished,

330
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People who'd learned that they didn't have to accept injustice

331
00:26:14.039 --> 00:26:19.359
as permanent, and who'd taught others the same lesson. At

332
00:26:19.359 --> 00:26:22.119
the end of the ceremony, Tommy was asked to give

333
00:26:22.119 --> 00:26:25.720
a speech about the Community Resilience Institute and its plans

334
00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:30.200
for the future. Tommy had never been comfortable with speeches,

335
00:26:31.240 --> 00:26:34.240
but he'd learned over the years that sometimes the most

336
00:26:34.279 --> 00:26:37.240
important things to say are the ones that make you

337
00:26:37.319 --> 00:26:43.920
uncomfortable to say. Five years ago, Tommy said, I was

338
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arrested during an immigration raid and sent to a detention

339
00:26:47.559 --> 00:26:50.480
center that was built by people who thought that suffering

340
00:26:50.599 --> 00:26:55.799
was an effective deterrent to immigration. What they didn't understand

341
00:26:56.200 --> 00:26:59.519
is that suffering can also be a teacher. It can

342
00:26:59.559 --> 00:27:03.440
teach you who you really are, what you're really capable of,

343
00:27:04.279 --> 00:27:07.440
and what really matters when everything else is taken away.

344
00:27:08.559 --> 00:27:13.000
At Alligator Alcatraz, I learned that systems only seem permanent

345
00:27:13.319 --> 00:27:17.599
until you understand how they actually work. I learned that

346
00:27:17.640 --> 00:27:20.960
the people who are most affected by broken policies are

347
00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:25.000
often the ones who best understand how to fix them.

348
00:27:25.160 --> 00:27:27.920
And I learned that the most powerful force for change

349
00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:33.359
isn't authority or money or official recognition. It's people who

350
00:27:33.400 --> 00:27:37.880
refuse to accept that cruelty is inevitable and who are

351
00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:41.839
willing to work together to prove that something better is possible.

352
00:27:42.880 --> 00:27:46.559
The Community Resilience Institute exists because of people who made

353
00:27:46.559 --> 00:27:50.960
that choice, people who decided that their suffering wasn't going

354
00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:53.559
to be wasted if they could use it to spare

355
00:27:53.599 --> 00:27:58.119
others from the same suffering. Our work isn't finished. There

356
00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:03.240
are still families being separated, still people disappearing into bureaucratic chaos,

357
00:28:03.799 --> 00:28:07.200
still systems that treat human beings as problems to be managed,

358
00:28:07.480 --> 00:28:10.480
rather than as people with dignity and rights and the

359
00:28:10.519 --> 00:28:15.640
capacity to contribute to their own solutions. But what we've

360
00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:19.880
proven is that those systems can be changed, not through

361
00:28:19.960 --> 00:28:25.960
legislation or policy reforms or administrative directives, though those things

362
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:30.319
have their place, but through the simple recognition that people

363
00:28:30.359 --> 00:28:34.319
deserve better and through the patient work of helping them

364
00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:40.240
organize to demand better. The Community Resilience Institute isn't about

365
00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:44.880
fixing immigration detention. It's about proving that people can fix

366
00:28:45.160 --> 00:28:49.359
immigration detention when they're given the opportunity and support to

367
00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:53.319
work together. And that's a lesson that applies to more

368
00:28:53.400 --> 00:28:57.680
than just immigration policy. It applies to every system that

369
00:28:57.759 --> 00:29:01.839
treats people as powerless when they're acting actually powerful, as

370
00:29:01.880 --> 00:29:07.400
isolated when they're actually connected, as problems when they're actually solutions.

371
00:29:08.359 --> 00:29:11.359
With the voice of a man whose witnessed transformation beyond

372
00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:16.000
anything he thought possible. Tommy concluded his speech by reading

373
00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:18.799
a letter he'd received that morning from a woman named

374
00:29:19.039 --> 00:29:24.599
Rosa Martinez, who'd been processed through a detention facility in California,

375
00:29:24.960 --> 00:29:28.440
where the Community Resilience Network had been operating for two years.

376
00:29:29.160 --> 00:29:31.759
Rosa wrote that she'd been separated from her four year

377
00:29:31.799 --> 00:29:35.160
old daughter during an immigration raid and had spent three

378
00:29:35.160 --> 00:29:38.359
months not knowing where her child was or whether she'd

379
00:29:38.359 --> 00:29:41.599
ever see her again. I was ready to give up,

380
00:29:42.359 --> 00:29:46.279
Rosa's letters said. I was ready to sign any paper

381
00:29:46.319 --> 00:29:48.880
they put in front of me, agreed to any arrangement

382
00:29:48.920 --> 00:29:50.960
that would at least let me know that my daughter

383
00:29:51.079 --> 00:29:54.000
was safe, even if it meant I would never see

384
00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:57.440
her again. But the people in your program taught me

385
00:29:57.519 --> 00:30:01.200
something different. They taught me that giving up wasn't the

386
00:30:01.240 --> 00:30:04.920
only option. They taught me how to navigate the system,

387
00:30:05.359 --> 00:30:08.359
how to advocate for my rights, how to find the

388
00:30:08.440 --> 00:30:12.279
right lawyers and the right organizations, and the right pressure

389
00:30:12.319 --> 00:30:15.319
points where a small amount of effort could make a

390
00:30:15.359 --> 00:30:21.079
big difference. More importantly, they taught me that I wasn't alone.

391
00:30:22.440 --> 00:30:24.680
That there were other parents who understood what I was

392
00:30:24.720 --> 00:30:28.839
going through, and other families who'd been reunited after situations

393
00:30:28.839 --> 00:30:34.359
that seemed hopeless. It took four months, but I found

394
00:30:34.359 --> 00:30:38.279
my daughter, and when we were reunited, I made a

395
00:30:38.319 --> 00:30:40.759
promise that I would spend the rest of my life

396
00:30:41.200 --> 00:30:43.799
making sure that no other parent had to go through

397
00:30:43.839 --> 00:30:47.359
what we went through. I'm now working with a legal

398
00:30:47.400 --> 00:30:51.640
aid organization in Los Angeles helping other families navigate the

399
00:30:51.640 --> 00:30:56.880
family reunification process. I use everything I learned from your program,

400
00:30:57.640 --> 00:30:59.759
and I teach those skills to other people who are

401
00:30:59.799 --> 00:31:03.680
facing the same challenges I faced. You didn't just help

402
00:31:03.759 --> 00:31:07.559
me find my daughter. You helped me find my purpose.

403
00:31:08.599 --> 00:31:11.400
You showed me that my suffering could become my strength,

404
00:31:12.480 --> 00:31:17.039
and that my experience could become someone else's hope. That's

405
00:31:17.039 --> 00:31:21.200
what the Community Resilience Institute really does. It doesn't just

406
00:31:21.279 --> 00:31:26.799
solve problems, It creates problem solvers. It doesn't just reunite families,

407
00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:30.839
It creates people who can help other families reunite themselves.

408
00:31:31.680 --> 00:31:35.079
Thank you for teaching me that the most powerful escape

409
00:31:35.200 --> 00:31:39.359
isn't running away from broken systems, it's learning how to

410
00:31:39.440 --> 00:31:43.480
fix them. Tommy folded the letter and looked out at

411
00:31:43.480 --> 00:31:50.279
the audience. Officials and advocates, academics, and activists, but most importantly,

412
00:31:51.200 --> 00:31:55.200
people whose lives had been changed by the recognition that

413
00:31:55.240 --> 00:31:59.240
they had the power to change other people's lives. That's

414
00:31:59.279 --> 00:32:03.880
what we do, Tommy said, simply. We teach people how

415
00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:06.880
to fix broken systems, and then we get out of

416
00:32:06.920 --> 00:32:18.720
their way and let them do it. Ten years after

417
00:32:18.759 --> 00:32:23.000
Alligator Alcatraz was demolished, I had coffee with Tommy at

418
00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:26.599
a cafe in Miami, not far from where that impossible

419
00:32:26.640 --> 00:32:32.680
detention center had once stood. Tommy was older, obviously, ten

420
00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:35.839
years of working in immigration detention facilities will age a

421
00:32:35.880 --> 00:32:39.920
man in ways that show, but he was also something

422
00:32:39.960 --> 00:32:46.319
I hadn't expected. He was content, not satisfied. Tommy's the

423
00:32:46.400 --> 00:32:49.119
kind of man who will never be satisfied as long

424
00:32:49.119 --> 00:32:52.519
as there is injustice in the world, but content in

425
00:32:52.559 --> 00:32:54.680
the way that comes from knowing that you've spent your

426
00:32:54.759 --> 00:32:58.319
life on work that matters, with people who matter, for

427
00:32:58.440 --> 00:33:02.720
reasons that matter. The Community Resilience Institute was operating in

428
00:33:02.799 --> 00:33:07.960
two hundred facilities across the country. Average detention times had

429
00:33:08.039 --> 00:33:12.960
dropped by forty percent at facilities with active programs, family

430
00:33:13.039 --> 00:33:17.759
reunification rates had increased by sixty percent, and more than

431
00:33:17.839 --> 00:33:21.359
ten thousand people had been trained in community organizing and

432
00:33:21.480 --> 00:33:24.440
system navigation skills that they were using to help others

433
00:33:24.519 --> 00:33:28.640
long after they'd been released from detention. But the numbers

434
00:33:28.680 --> 00:33:33.559
weren't what made Tommy content. What made him content was

435
00:33:33.599 --> 00:33:38.799
the stories. Stories like Rosa Martinez, who'd become a legal

436
00:33:38.839 --> 00:33:44.559
aid coordinator helping other families navigate the immigration system. Stories

437
00:33:44.640 --> 00:33:48.440
like David Santos, who'd earned his master's degree in public

438
00:33:48.480 --> 00:33:51.759
administration and was now working with the Department of Justice

439
00:33:51.799 --> 00:33:57.960
to reform immigration court procedures. Stories like Carlos Mendoza, whose

440
00:33:57.960 --> 00:34:01.799
family had started a small business providing translation and legal

441
00:34:01.839 --> 00:34:07.000
aid services to immigrant communities in Phoenix. Stories like the

442
00:34:07.039 --> 00:34:10.360
three hundred people who'd been trained through the Community Resilience

443
00:34:10.400 --> 00:34:13.960
Network and had gone on to establish similar programs in

444
00:34:14.039 --> 00:34:18.039
their own communities, spreading the knowledge and the model far

445
00:34:18.199 --> 00:34:23.400
beyond the immigration system, to housing advocacy, criminal justice reform,

446
00:34:24.039 --> 00:34:28.599
health care access, and education equity. You know what the

447
00:34:28.719 --> 00:34:33.800
real success is, Tommy asked, stirring sugar into his coffee

448
00:34:33.960 --> 00:34:39.480
and looking out at the Miami skyline. What's that I'm

449
00:34:39.480 --> 00:34:44.119
not needed anymore? What Tommy meant was that the Community

450
00:34:44.159 --> 00:34:48.639
Resilience Institute had accomplished something that most organizations never achieve.

451
00:34:49.880 --> 00:34:53.639
It had made itself obsolete. Not by solving all the

452
00:34:53.679 --> 00:34:57.599
problems it was created to address. There were still families

453
00:34:57.639 --> 00:35:02.159
being separated, still people trapped in in bureaucratic chaos, still

454
00:35:02.239 --> 00:35:07.400
systems that treated human dignity as an inconvenience. But by

455
00:35:07.440 --> 00:35:11.159
creating a generation of people who understood that those problems

456
00:35:11.159 --> 00:35:14.760
could be solved, and who had the skills and knowledge

457
00:35:14.800 --> 00:35:19.559
and connections to solve them without waiting for permission from

458
00:35:19.639 --> 00:35:24.079
authorities or assistance from experts, the institute had become what

459
00:35:24.159 --> 00:35:28.119
Tommy had always intended it to be. A training ground

460
00:35:28.159 --> 00:35:30.639
that prepared people to go out and create their own

461
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:34.559
training grounds, a network that taught people how to build

462
00:35:34.599 --> 00:35:38.320
their own networks, a model that showed people how to

463
00:35:38.360 --> 00:35:43.440
develop their own models. The best kind of leadership, Tommy said,

464
00:35:44.360 --> 00:35:47.920
is the kind that creates other leaders and the best

465
00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:51.039
kind of program is the one that teaches people how

466
00:35:51.079 --> 00:35:55.000
to create their own programs. Elena had gone on to

467
00:35:55.159 --> 00:35:59.599
establish a similar institute focused on criminal justice reform, using

468
00:35:59.639 --> 00:36:03.400
the same community organizing principles to help people navigate the

469
00:36:03.440 --> 00:36:08.920
legal system and advocate for policy changes. Maria was running

470
00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:14.119
a family services organization that had expanded beyond immigration to

471
00:36:14.199 --> 00:36:19.320
work with families affected by housing displacement, health care access barriers,

472
00:36:19.840 --> 00:36:25.679
and education inequality. LUISH had become an environmental justice organizer,

473
00:36:26.440 --> 00:36:29.719
working with immigrant communities to address the health and safety

474
00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:35.800
impacts of industrial pollution and climate change, and Old Pete

475
00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:41.039
wonderful patient. Old Pete was teaching system navigation skills to

476
00:36:41.119 --> 00:36:45.440
advocates working on everything from veterans benefits to disability rights

477
00:36:45.719 --> 00:36:49.840
to elder care. The model that had been developed in

478
00:36:49.920 --> 00:36:53.599
four weeks at Alligator Alcatraz was now being applied to

479
00:36:53.679 --> 00:36:58.559
challenge injustice wherever it existed, by people who understood that

480
00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:06.800
ordinary individuals working together could accomplish extraordinary things. As our

481
00:37:06.840 --> 00:37:10.440
coffee grew cold and the Miami afternoon settled into evening,

482
00:37:11.480 --> 00:37:17.119
Tommy told me about his plans for retirement. Retirement. I said,

483
00:37:18.079 --> 00:37:24.119
you're fifty two years old, Tommy laughed. Not retirement from work,

484
00:37:24.719 --> 00:37:27.719
retirement from being the person who has to coordinate everything.

485
00:37:28.719 --> 00:37:30.480
I want to go back to being the person who

486
00:37:30.599 --> 00:37:34.760
just fixes things that are broken. Tommy's plan was to

487
00:37:34.840 --> 00:37:37.320
return to what he'd been doing before he was arrested

488
00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:42.480
during that immigration raid ten years earlier maintenance work, except

489
00:37:42.480 --> 00:37:46.119
this time, instead of maintaining buildings and equipment, he wanted

490
00:37:46.119 --> 00:37:50.119
to maintain communities. His idea was to spend his time

491
00:37:50.159 --> 00:37:55.480
traveling between different cities and towns, working with local organizations

492
00:37:55.519 --> 00:37:59.199
to identify problems that could be solved through community organizing,

493
00:38:00.559 --> 00:38:03.480
and then helping people develop the skills and structures they

494
00:38:03.519 --> 00:38:08.840
needed to solve those problems themselves. Like a traveling handy man,

495
00:38:09.559 --> 00:38:14.639
Tommy said, except instead of fixing leaky pipes and broken appliances,

496
00:38:15.719 --> 00:38:20.519
I'd be helping people fix broken systems. It was a

497
00:38:20.559 --> 00:38:26.519
perfect plan for Tommy, practical, unpretentious, focused on helping people

498
00:38:26.559 --> 00:38:29.920
solve their own problems rather than solving problems for them,

499
00:38:31.280 --> 00:38:33.920
and it was exactly the kind of work that bureaucrats

500
00:38:33.960 --> 00:38:39.239
could never understand, fund or control, which made it exactly

501
00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:41.400
the kind of work that was most likely to create

502
00:38:41.480 --> 00:38:47.039
lasting change. So what's the lesson? I asked Tommy as

503
00:38:47.039 --> 00:38:50.840
we prepared to leave the cafe. If you had to

504
00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:54.119
sum up everything you learned from Alligator Alcatraz to now,

505
00:38:55.840 --> 00:39:00.440
what would you tell people? Tommy thought about that moment,

506
00:39:01.280 --> 00:39:05.920
watching the evening traffic flow past the window, I'd tell

507
00:39:05.960 --> 00:39:09.519
them that every system was designed by people, which means

508
00:39:09.880 --> 00:39:14.079
every system can be redesigned by people. And I'd tell

509
00:39:14.119 --> 00:39:16.559
them that the people who are most affected by broken

510
00:39:16.639 --> 00:39:20.559
systems are usually the ones who best understand how to

511
00:39:20.599 --> 00:39:24.039
fix them. But mostly I'd tell them that they don't

512
00:39:24.079 --> 00:39:26.679
have to wait for permission to start making things better.

513
00:39:27.679 --> 00:39:29.599
They just have to be willing to work with other

514
00:39:29.639 --> 00:39:33.199
people who want the same thing, and be patient enough

515
00:39:33.360 --> 00:39:36.360
to let the changes grow from the ground up instead

516
00:39:36.360 --> 00:39:40.840
of trying to impose them from the top down. Tommy paused,

517
00:39:41.280 --> 00:39:45.559
then smiled, and I'd tell them that sometimes the most

518
00:39:45.639 --> 00:39:48.840
important thing you can do is help other people discover

519
00:39:49.039 --> 00:39:52.039
what they're capable of when they stop thinking of themselves

520
00:39:52.039 --> 00:39:56.480
as powerless. With the satisfaction of a man who's told

521
00:39:56.519 --> 00:40:00.039
a story that needed telling. That conversation with Tommy he

522
00:40:00.280 --> 00:40:04.519
was five years ago. Since then, I've kept track of

523
00:40:04.559 --> 00:40:08.159
the work he's been doing, not because he publicizes it,

524
00:40:09.199 --> 00:40:12.559
but because the effects are visible in communities across the country,

525
00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:16.559
where people have learned to organize themselves around solving problems

526
00:40:16.679 --> 00:40:21.239
that seemed impossible. Tommy never did become famous, or powerful

527
00:40:21.480 --> 00:40:25.480
or wealthy. He never wrote a book about his experiences

528
00:40:25.639 --> 00:40:29.079
or gave speeches at conferences or appeared on television to

529
00:40:29.119 --> 00:40:33.280
talk about his innovative approaches to social change. But he

530
00:40:33.320 --> 00:40:37.639
did something more important. He proved that the most profound

531
00:40:37.840 --> 00:40:43.079
transformations happened quietly through the patient work of ordinary people

532
00:40:43.320 --> 00:40:48.480
who refuse to accept that suffering is inevitable. The detention

533
00:40:48.639 --> 00:40:53.199
center they called Alligator Alcatraz existed for exactly four weeks.

534
00:40:54.320 --> 00:40:59.039
In that time, it separated hundreds of families, wasted millions

535
00:40:59.079 --> 00:41:04.239
of taxpayer dollars, and demonstrated every form of bureaucratic incompetence

536
00:41:04.440 --> 00:41:08.039
known to government. But it also created something that outlasted

537
00:41:08.159 --> 00:41:12.440
every building that was demolished, every contract that was canceled,

538
00:41:12.800 --> 00:41:17.360
every career that was destroyed by the corruption investigation. It

539
00:41:17.480 --> 00:41:20.719
created a community of people who understood that they didn't

540
00:41:20.760 --> 00:41:23.320
have to be victims of systems that were designed to

541
00:41:23.400 --> 00:41:28.719
victimize them. Tommy Esperanza arrived at Alligator Alcatraz as a

542
00:41:28.760 --> 00:41:32.599
maintenance worker who had been swept up in an immigration rate.

543
00:41:33.920 --> 00:41:35.880
He left as a teacher who'd learned how to help

544
00:41:35.920 --> 00:41:40.360
other people maintain their dignity in situations designed to destroy it.

545
00:41:41.079 --> 00:41:45.760
Elena Vasquez entered as a scapegoat for political corruption. She

546
00:41:45.920 --> 00:41:48.440
left as an architect of justice who'd learned how to

547
00:41:48.480 --> 00:41:53.239
turn systems against themselves, and hundreds of others discovered that

548
00:41:53.280 --> 00:41:59.119
their suffering could become their strength, their experience could become

549
00:41:59.159 --> 00:42:03.400
someone else's home, and their stories could become the foundation

550
00:42:03.639 --> 00:42:07.639
for changes that reached far beyond anything they'd imagined possible.

551
00:42:10.400 --> 00:42:15.400
They say, nobody ever escaped from Alcatraz, but Tommy Esperanza

552
00:42:15.480 --> 00:42:18.559
and the people who worked with him accomplished something better

553
00:42:18.599 --> 00:42:22.880
than escape. They prove that the most powerful prison walls

554
00:42:22.920 --> 00:42:26.679
are the ones we build in our own minds, the

555
00:42:26.760 --> 00:42:30.960
belief that systems can't be changed, that ordinary people can't

556
00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:37.559
accomplish extraordinary things, that dignity and justice and human compassion

557
00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:41.519
are luxuries that can't survive in a world designed around

558
00:42:41.559 --> 00:42:47.559
efficiency and control. Breaking through those walls doesn't require tunnels

559
00:42:47.719 --> 00:42:52.800
or ropes or midnight flights to freedom. It just requires

560
00:42:52.840 --> 00:42:57.920
the recognition that every person has value, every community has wisdom,

561
00:42:58.079 --> 00:43:01.679
and every system that denies those truths contains the seeds

562
00:43:01.679 --> 00:43:05.519
of its own transformation. You just have to know how

563
00:43:05.559 --> 00:43:10.079
to plant them, and sometimes, if you're very patient and

564
00:43:10.239 --> 00:43:14.000
very lucky, you get to watch them grow into forests.

565
00:43:15.719 --> 00:43:19.559
The sound of water moving through restored wetlands, carrying life

566
00:43:19.639 --> 00:43:23.480
back to places where it belongs. That's the story of

567
00:43:23.480 --> 00:43:30.159
Alligator Alcatraz, where wisdom beat authority, community beat bureaucracy, and

568
00:43:30.280 --> 00:43:33.719
hope beat despair every single time,