Increased vigilance at the borders and ramped up roundup measures in large urban areas have played a major part in vilifying the various arms of the Department of Homeland Security and in particular the border protection units operating around many ethnic communities across the country.
For many of them, these law enforcement officials are more of a threat than a calming influence. Or at least the Department of Homeland Security thinks it is a significant enough problem to put in place a community-pleasing mechanism.
In an ambitious public relations exercise, the Customs and Border Protection field office brought together other major arms of the Department of Homeland Security in Chicago on Monday to kick off an interesting community outreach program.
The idea is to humanize the intimidating border patrol agents often seen only as those checking the luggage and posing aggressive questions—not a very inviting sight for anyone entering the country.
A diplomat from El Salvador, Patricia Maza-Pittsford, pinpoints the reason why the DHS faces an image crisis in the first place: “Because it is an offspring of violence, it has been perceived as unfriendly.”
A packed hall filled with many high ranking officials in the city’s security apparatus and many community leaders heard a series of optimistic remarks, marking a cautious inauguration of the program.
The idea is believed to be an expansion of successful interactions with Chicago Muslim groups that felt threatened by what they considered was post 9/11 racial profiling. As they took their complaints to federal officials, mediators and problem-solvers joined hands to give the community grievances a platform.
The process, though, demands a great deal of sensitivity. As an official from the Hispanic Illinois State Law Enforcement Agency said, “It has taken us 25 years to build a trust with the community. We are taking a chance by passing on some of that trust to DHS.”
DHS will set up teams made up of members from its various wings who will be available for community meetings to help create an atmosphere of understanding and root out the fear about its style of work. These teams will be called the Department of Homeland Security Community Alliance Teams or DCATS as they like to call it.
Really, DCATS?
If it is supposed to be a confidence building measure aimed at dismantling the belief that the DHS is an evil actor surely they could have come up with a less intimidating acronym than DCATS. It reeks of intelligence verbiage and surely doesn’t have a pleasing and inviting ring to it.
Despite the nomenclature fiasco, there is little doubt that this is a positive move that would serve a two-pronged goal of elevating the image of the security agency as well as helping it build a strong network in the community.
But there are plenty of challenges ahead.
Almost as soon as the packed room got ready to hear the various community leaders speak, cries rung out from one corner of the hall: “Deportations destroy families.”
The loud, piercing slogan chanting was quelled soon enough and those responsible were escorted out, but it left an unpleasant vibe in the hall—underscoring the scale of the challenge ahead.
