The Line Becomes a River

by Francisco Cantú

  As José shuffled through a row of chairs, the soft tinkling of his shackles seemed to fill the room. When I finally caught a glimpse of his profile, I saw the face of a man adrift at sea, his eyes scanning the horizon as if out of habit, with little actual hope of sighting land. He wore a sweat-stained T-shirt that seemed to swallow him, and his body appeared small and gaunt and slumped inward, his face and head leathered and speckled with gray hair. As he turned, he caught sight of his three sons with their mouths open and their arms draped around their mother, who had finally lifted her head. He gasped audibly, his eyes dilating in disbelief. He looked away and then back again, focusing and unfocusing his vision in confirmation. Quiet sobs began to seize his children, and I wondered if I had done something terrible by bringing them here. José took one last look at his family, his mouth slack and twisted, his eyes wide with longing, and then, with great force, he began to thrash his head downward, to and fro, as if trying to shake a nightmare upon waking.

  —

  I’ve been thinking a lot about this case, José’s court-appointed attorney told me when we met a week after the Streamline hearing, in an empty hallway outside the courtroom. Alone among the forty or so others, who were convicted and sentenced without distinction, José had been granted a continuance at the request of his attorney and scheduled for a follow-up hearing. Walter, the attorney, had advised Lupe not to come—it’s too risky to show up at the courthouse without papers, he told her. But the boys could come, he said, they’re citizens, no problem. And so Lupe took the boys out of school once again to see their father in shackles and asked me if I would bring them. Of course, I said.

  You know, Walter continued, I woke up thinking about Mr. Martínez in the middle of the night. It’s not that his situation is unique, because it’s not. But it’s unusual to see so much support for someone in the courtroom, to see their family right there in the gallery. Walter was silent for several seconds. I have a son, he said, gesturing toward José’s oldest—they’re the same age. I woke up this morning and I could hear my son out in the kitchen. It got me thinking. No father should be kept from his family this way, no father should have a young son and wake up unable to hear him in the next room.

  As I sat listening to Walter on a dark wooden bench, José’s boys chased one another down the empty hallway and I wondered how the wide corridors of the courthouse must seem to them as they slid across the waxed floors. Watching them, I realized that I had little understanding of the place myself. I thought of the countless documents I had filled out during my years in the Border Patrol—voluntary return papers, expedited removal forms, reinstatements of prior deportation orders—documents sorted through by clerks and attorneys and judges, documents that followed the accused as they were shuttled across the state from one holding cell to the next. I realized, too, that despite my small role within the system, despite hours of training and studying at the academy, I had little inkling of what happened to those I arrested after I turned over their paperwork and went home from my shift.

  For several minutes, Walter and I sat next to each other in silence. My mind had filled with questions, but I was wary of seeming too curious, wary that Walter might sense my old allegiance to the agency that was so often positioned against him. I asked sheepishly if he could explain to me why he had asked for the continuance. He thought about how best to explain. Well, he began, I’ll start with the basics. There’s criminal law and civil law, you probably know that. Charges related to illegal border crossing are criminal charges—so last week’s hearing and this week’s follow-up are both criminal proceedings. But citizenship and immigration fall under the umbrella of civil law. I nodded, remembering my tests at the academy. Walter went on. You’ve got to understand that most undocumented border crossers don’t have any claim to citizenship or immigration status. But José’s got family here, his kids are citizens. That’s why I interjected during the Streamline hearing last week and asked the judge to delay José’s sentencing. I hoped a continuance would give him some time to find an actual immigration lawyer, to see if they can put together a claim to be heard in civil court. They found someone, I said, the owner of the mercado is friends with a good lawyer. That’s lucky, he said. Who is it? Elizabeth Green, I told him. Well, he replied, that’s very lucky. Elizabeth has a great reputation. He glanced down the hallway at Vicente, José’s youngest boy. I think she just had a baby, he added.

  Walter turned back to me. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen today, he said. Mr. Martínez will still have to plead guilty to the misdemeanor crime of illegal entry, like everyone you saw last week. In turn, the government will offer him the same deal as before—dismissing the felony charge of reentry and sentencing him to thirty days in prison. Then, boom, José is done with the criminal charges. That’s when things change. Instead of being immediately deported after fulfilling his sentence, José will then get kicked over into an immigration proceeding—the civil case. Elizabeth will be the one handling all that. The family will meet with her in the meantime and they’ll put together an argument. I don’t know much about the intricacies of immigration law, except that it’s not free. You don’t get a public defender like me. You gotta pay to play.

  Walter gazed down the hallway at José’s boys. You know, he said, it’s difficult to see a man’s life torn apart. A lot of people in the immigration system lose sight of people’s humanity. I see it every day here. He gestured at the air all around him. The Border Patrol agents, the marshals I see here day in and day out, they objectify these people all the time. I clenched my jaw, not wanting to reveal myself.

  I know a guy who works here, I told him. Oh yeah? he asked. What’s his name? Morales. Shit, Walter said, I know Morales. He paused. I don’t want to say anything bad about your buddy, but that Morales is a very serious guy. He’s always seemed a bit callous to me. Yanking on people, pushing their chairs around, stuff like that. I looked at Walter and held my tongue.

  You know, he said, as a public defender I’ve represented all sorts of people. I’ve even represented Border Patrol agents. One of my clients was framed by his own colleagues in the patrol because he was too human, because he showed too much compassion in the line of duty. The other agents didn’t like him because he didn’t play along with them, you know? He carried an injured woman on his back through the desert and the other agents started thinking he was soft, they didn’t trust him, didn’t like working with him, so they set the guy up. They framed him for brutality. They made it look like he had beaten someone up in the field. Isn’t that twisted? I nodded. I tell you, Walter said, the Border Patrol, the marshals, it’s like they forget about kindness. I’ve almost never seen these guys express any humanity, any emotion. I don’t know how they do it. How do you come home to your kids at night when you spend your day treating other humans like dogs?

  —

  José, dressed in bright prisoner orange, listened intently through a headset as the judge spoke to him.

  I understand that you intend to plead guilty to the petty offense of illegal entry at a place other than one designated for entry by U.S. Immigration. In exchange for your plea, the government has agreed to dismiss the felony offense of reentry after removal.

  This time José was the lone defendant in a modest-sized courtroom with few other occupants. Walter sat next to him and along the wall sat two U.S. marshals, both in dark suits, one of them tall with an angry pockmarked face, his gaze alternating intently between José and his boys. In a booth beside the judge’s bench, a dark-skinned interpreter spoke hushed Spanish into a headset.

  You must understand, the judge continued, that in the future this charge will always be used against you, that if you are arrested attempting to reenter the country, you could serve years in prison, not days or months. Next to me, José Junior drew a stick figure on the outside of an envelope. Look, he whispered to me, it’s my brother.

  Mr. Martínez, said the judge, are you a citizen of Mexico? S
í. On or about September 1, 2015, did you enter the United States near Yuma, Arizona? Sí. Did you come through a designated port of entry? No, señor. How do you plead in the charge of illegal entry? Culpable, señor.

  —

  After the hearing, Walter and I sat again on a long bench outside the courtroom while the boys loped around the hallway, then disappeared. The sounds of their hollow yelling echoed out from the bathroom. You know, Walter told me, if Mr. Martínez hadn’t left the country to see his dying mother, he would have been protected by the executive orders issued by President Obama. The orders granted provisional status and deferred deportation to noncriminal parents of U.S. citizens. José would have been home free. At the end of the hallway José’s boys became visible again and I called out to Diego, the oldest. The other boys followed, pushing and circling each other behind him. What’s with the yelling in the bathroom? I asked. I don’t know, Diego said, we were just yelling. Because of the echo.

  Suddenly, the doors to the courtroom opened in front of us and the tall man with the pockmarked face came striding out. He walked slowly over to the boys, now sitting at the far end of the bench. He stood craning over them and looked each of them in the face. Was that your dad in there? he asked. Yeah, Diego said meekly. Well, the man said, pausing for a moment—I’m sorry about your dad. Sometimes I feel pretty bad for you guys. He peered down at his chest and unfastened a small lapel pin with his massive hands. He grasped the pin in his fingers and stretched his arm out to Diego like a pilot offering his wings to a small boy. Diego took the pin and the man turned and walked back into the courtroom as Diego contemplated the object in his palm.

  That’s interesting, said Walter. I see that man in here all the time. I’ve never once seen him express any emotion. He shook his head. That’s the first attempt at kindness I’ve ever witnessed here. I raised my eyebrows at him. Some people have more compassion than they let on, I told him.

  Later, as I left the courtroom with the boys, I asked Diego if I could see the pin. He continued walking forward without stopping. Show it to him, said José Junior, the middle brother. He nudged Diego’s shoulder. Reluctantly, Diego reached into his pocket. He clutched the pin in his fist, as if it had become something precious to him, then dropped it into my hand. The pin was heavy, made of real brass. It was a small star ringed by the words “United States Marshal.” A tiny badge.

  —

  Growing up, my mother tells me, she always felt ashamed to be Mexican. Her midwestern mother came from German and Irish roots, and her parents separated before she could form any memory of her father. Her mother, despite having fallen in love with a Mexican man, despite living in southwestern towns rich with Mexican heritage, despite being surrounded by Mexican coworkers and neighbors, nevertheless carried with her a certain attitude about Mexicans. As a child, my mother was told that she was messy, that she lied, that she was lazy, all because she was Mexican. If she found herself moved by ambition, if she felt driven by a sense of purpose, she was told it was her Irish work ethic, her exacting German focus. Even as she grew older, she found herself filled with shame whenever she procrastinated, whenever she felt the urge to put things off, as if she were battling an insidious and inferior lineage within.

  Her mother had given her a single picture of her father. In the picture he was young and handsome, his face turned sideways to the camera, his eyes dark and squinting as he stared into the distance. He wore the traditional dress of a Mexican charro with a broad sombrero and a moño tied loosely around his neck. He held his left hand in front of his chin with his palm turned toward the sky and a cigarette hanging between his curled forefingers, a cone of ash ready to fall from the tip.

  My mother would stare at this photo and swell with love for her father, imagining him as adventurous and dashing, mysterious and strong. She fantasized about meeting him. Finally, the summer she turned seventeen, she drove to his home in San Diego. She wore her most expensive shoes and her finest Mexican dress, white and brown gingham frilled with dark lace. Standing on his doorstep, she could hardly contain herself. Her father was a legend. She knocked at the door and waited to be greeted by a tall and elegantly dressed caballero. When the door finally opened, she beheld a short man in a white T-shirt, bald and grinning, a soft belly protruding from well-worn pleated pants.

  My young mother came to find that her father was a man bound by family and tradition, a man who lived mere miles from his brothers and sisters, who spent his days indoors sorting mail for the postal service, who rarely ventured far from home, a man who, as she saw it, never took any risks. She found herself, after years of anticipation, ashamed of her father—ashamed, still, to be Mexican.

  It wasn’t until later, as a young adult, living and working in national parks, that she saw how a tradition of staying could serve to root people in a culture, to anchor them in a landscape. In the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, in the farms and ranches of West Texas, in the canyonlands of the Colorado plateau, she saw how people loved and were shaped by the land. Finally, she traveled to the Coronado National Memorial on the border of Arizona and Sonora. She became friends with the superintendent of the park, a Mexican man proud of his heritage, born a citizen of both nations. For years he had worked in Mexico as a school principal. But in the Coronado Memorial, a place that marked the passage of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado across the lands that would come to hold a torrid boundary line—a place that commemorated the inception of a violent and unceasing exchange of cultures—he saw a place of international significance, a place that told his story.

  My mother soon confided in the man, and he became the first person she ever told about her lifelong shame of being Mexican. The man smiled at her. That’s how it works, he told her. The first generation struggles to leave, to come into a new country, to gain acceptance in a new culture. Often they arrive and find themselves ostracized, they settle in pockets, they do everything they can just to get a toehold. Whether or not they learn English themselves, they know that their children must speak it. Sometimes they go so far as to discourage their children from speaking their own language—they want them to get into good schools, to identify with their new culture, to be accepted by it in all the ways they were not. The man looked knowingly at my mother as he explained. This second generation, he continued, might find themselves at great distance from the culture of their parents. Perhaps somewhere along the way they are told to put the old culture behind them, and so they find it within themselves to reject it.

  As the second generation forms their own identity, he went on, it is more often built within the new culture rather than the old. By the time they have their own children, it usually turns out that this third generation is almost totally accepted. They have it easy—the culture of their grandparents’ adopted country defines them wholly. However, he added, when they arrive at adulthood, they often begin to look around for something that makes them unique. And it’s then that they begin to search for an inheritance, to look back for the traditions that make them special, and often they realize it isn’t there. They realize something has been lost along the way.

  My mother tells me that when I was born, she remembered the words of this man, she remembered all the ways she had grown up alienated from her own identity. I didn’t want that for my son, she tells me. I wanted you to feel pride, to find strength in your heritage.

  —

  Outside the law offices of Elizabeth Green, I sat in my truck, wondering what I was doing, what role I was playing, what protocols I had followed to arrive there. I sat with the engine idling, slowly shaking my head as I listened to the radio. It’s simple, I finally told myself. This is what friends do.

  Inside, a receptionist directed me to a conference room upstairs. I entered to find Elizabeth and Diane already seated across the table from each other, chatting about Elizabeth’s newborn. I greeted Diane and introduced myself to Elizabeth. I work for Diane, I told her, I’m a friend of José’s
. Diane leaned over to Elizabeth. He can speak Spanish, she said. He’s been a big help to the family. How nice, Elizabeth said. I took a seat near the end of the table beside a long window overlooking the mountains to the west. I listened to the women and eyed the clock. Lupe was late. It’s hard to sleep at night, Elizabeth was telling Diane, I hear him crying out for me in the next room. It’s almost like I can hear him breathing through the walls.

  My phone rang. Lupe had arrived and needed help finding the office. I excused myself to go outside. In the parking lot I found her walking with the pastor. I greeted them both. Nice to see you again, I told the pastor, how good of you to come.

  Upstairs Elizabeth greeted everyone and invited us to sit down. She began in Spanish, speaking directly to Lupe in slow, deliberate sentences. Unfortunately, she said, José’s situation is not rare. She looked around the room. But it is rare to see so many people here for one case. Usually only the immediate family comes to a meeting like this. Elizabeth looked at Lupe and then gestured at me, Diane, and the pastor. José must have made quite an impression on you all, she said. Lupe watched us with her hands gathered in her lap. Elizabeth went on. I want to talk with you today about José so we can find the best strategy to keep him here. We are going to do everything we can, she told Lupe. Elizabeth placed a hand on the table and repeated her words. Todo lo posible.

  Elizabeth switched into English and glanced at me. Do you mind translating? she asked. No, I said, of course not. I want to make a few things clear, she began, I want to temper expectations right off the bat. This case is going to be hard, not impossible, but hard. She looked across the table at Diane. I also want to be clear that even if José is able to stay, it is unlikely that he’ll be able to come back to work for you, because at this point, of course, you are no longer ignorant of his undocumented status. Diane shook her head. It’s a shame—José was such a great employee, such a sweet man. Well, Elizabeth said, it’s rare to see an employer invested in someone enough to come to these meetings, rare for them to support someone’s case against deportation. Diane shrugged. I really thought he had everything in order, she said. At first we hired him on as an independent contractor. He filled out all his paperwork, had a social security number, and at the end of each year we gave him a 1099. It never occurred to me that even after months and years of working with us he never asked to be put on payroll, never asked for benefits. Maybe he wanted to keep things vague to protect himself, to protect us from knowing his status. Diane looked around the table. I just never thought about it.