was ahe topic, it question, so we really had some time to focus in. when i looked online and got the contact information for the person who authored the 26th amendment, i thought, tyler, we have to do this. we have to get into contact with this person. we sent some emails, started filming, got more emails, and everything fell into place. >> picking the 26th amendment was over. there was a lot a controversy going on right now in the public. it relates to our us and how it affected us. we're going to college next year. in contacte to get with important people in iowa and around the country. top 22 winning entries will air on c-span in april. you can watch every studentcam

documentary online at studentcam.org. ♪ francisco cantu discusses his memoir. >> francisco cantu, when did you first think about becoming a writer? mr. cantu: i first thought about writing about my experiences as a border patrol agent six months, a year after leaving. i was really trying to grapple with that experience and come to

terms with what i had participated in. so that is when i first darted thinking i have to write in order to make sense of this. ,t seemed like the only option to get everything down on paper and put all those experiences in one place. i did not know it would be a book at the time. that is how all books start. >> when were you in the border patrol and where did you live at that time? mr. cantu: i was in the patrol from 2008 until 2012. i spent the first two years of my career in a field station in arizona. i spent enough -- another year at intelligence headquarters in tucson, and then i spent about half a year in el paso. >> let me go to the basics. where were you born? mr. cantu: santa rosa,

california. left shortly after my birth. my mother was a park ranger, so we lived in a couple different places in the southwest will she was working for the national parks, and then settled in arizona. she got a gift shop for the for the she got a job fourth service. i spent most of my early life growing up in arizona. >> you said you one to eight knowledge my -- you want to acknowledge my three fathers. explain. biological father, my mother and he separated pretty early on. and so i have nicknames for each dad, so that is my bio dad, and then i got my other dad. as i was going to my most formative years, so i

call him dad, and he came into my life when i was maybe six months or year old. he is also my dad. my mom remarried when i was in middle school, to al. al was my stepdad during my five. -- during my high school years. >> where did you grow up? mr. cantu: i grew up in a small town called prescott. >> how long did you live there? mr. cantu: almost my entire adolescence. i left when i turned 18. i was there my entire schooling from the time i was 5 two i graduated high school. >> where did you go to college? >> mr. cantu: ndc, at american university. >> why did you pick american? mr. cantu: i wanted to study international relations.

it is funny because i left arizona wanting to explore the world and wanting to broaden my horizons, and i had that travel bug. so i went to international relations as a way of having a .ery wide view the reason i think that is funny tc, iause after a year in was like, man, i need to study some thing that i am more rigid in and i have more investment in. i turned my focus back toward where i grew up and toward where i came from. that is when i started to focus on order studies, u.s.-mexico relations within the umbrella with in -- with international relations. >> when were you a fulbright scholar? mr. cantu: when i left the border patrol in 2012. fellowship2, 2013

and i went to the netherlands. i was studying rejected asylum-seekers living in the shadows after their application for silent had been rejected, so they had remained in the netherlands in violation of the deportation orders. i was interested when i applied for that fulbright to think about immigration and borders in another context. >> what year did you graduate from american and how close was that to the 2008 entrance into the border patrol? mr. cantu: i graduated in american in 2000 eight, and i started border patrol shortly thereafter. i had actually begun the application process while i was at american university. i think i signed up for the icelerated process because knew i would be going back to

arizona, and if you are close to the southwest border station, you can accelerate the application by showing up in person for the interviews. yeah, i think there was six months that they were reviewing my application before i was finally accepted. it was a quick turnaround. >> i'm looking at an article that comes from something called splinternews.com. the headline, middle of february, an ex-border control, has become a media darling and immigration activists are furious. what is that about? is about your time promoting this book. these are the people on the left and the suspicion was when you read the book that people on the right would be attacking you. what is this about? mr. cantu: honestly, i think a lot of the concerns that have been brought up by these groups

are very valid. i feel like they are aced on some misconceptions about the book and the content of the book and the message of the book. however, i think the essential argument there is, who gets to tell these stories? and whose voice do we listen to? and i think in some of that media coverage for this book, and you know this full well in the media, the border patrol is a very closed agency, very suspicious of outside attention. it can be very cagey. so i think for a lot of people in the media, the fact that there is this book by a border patrol agent and i seem nice and the book is relatable, they are sort of portraying this that humanizes the border patrol. but the message of the book is really one of the dehumanization of migrants.

and so i think the focus is sort of, the takeaway of the book is not that we need to be humanizing border patrol agents. the takeaway is to really look at all the ways we discount the migrant experience and negate migrants with our words and our rhetoric. so i really understand the root of that opposition. brian: go back to your mom for a second. where was she born? mr. cantu: my mother was born in i think, san diego, california. , that's where my grandfather's family settled after they crossed the border from monterrey, mexico. brian: your biological father was born where? mr. cantu: i'm not sure where my biological father was born. california or oregon. yeah. brian: how related are you to

mexico in your ancestry? mr. cantu: it was my mother's father who crossed the border, and, in fact, his parents brought him across the border when he was maybe 5 years old. and they were fleeing the violence of the mexican revolution. so in many ways, they were refugees. they came here in a similar way that a lot of people are coming here now. and he grew up in san diego. his entire family relocated there. they started one of the first -- my great-grandfather started one of the first spanish-language newspapers in san diego for the mexican community living there. and my mother was actually -- her story is somewhat similar to mine where her mother and father separated early on. so she didn't grow up with her mexican father, my grandfather. she didn't grow up speaking spanish. she didn't grow up very close to the mexican side of her culture.

but she kept his name. she never changed her name, and so i have his last name, as well. brian: what a narco? mr. cantu: just sorf of a -- mr. cantu: just sort of a spanish term for a drug dealer, anyone related with the drug trade. brian: was a -- what's a cartel? mr. cantu: cartel refers to the drug-smuggling mafias. brian: what a coyote? mr. cantu: coyotes are people who traffic migrants across the border. brian: what is the significance of the rio grande river? and this map that you see there, the rio grande starts in colorado and comes down through new mexico, but that's the borderline. when you see that map and your own expenses, what do you think? mr. cantu: you know, i spent a lot of time looking at this map

and thinking about this map. when i was thinking more abstractly about the book -- and the title really comes from thinking about this map and thinking about the way the line is drawn across the landscape. and when i was thinking about the title, i was thinking about what borders we accept as natural -- mountain range, river -- they demarcate something in a way we sort of accept. and what sort of boundaries are unnatural? and growing up in arizona and seeing all these places where across the landscape in a very -- the line is sort of etched across the landscape in a very visible way, in a very unnatural way, i wanted to speak to that tension with the title. and i became interested and hyperfocused on this point outside of el paso where the line that is drawn across the

desert meets the river. and then becomes somewhat more natural in a way. brian: the names in the book, are they the names of the actual people? mr. cantu: they are all changed without exception. brian: why? mr. cantu: to protect the identities of the people that are in the book. brian: including the border patrol agents you worked with? mr. cantu: yeah, for everyone, border patrol agents, especially the migrants. my friend jose at the end of the book, his family. brian: all made up. the names? mr. cantu: yes, sir. brian: ok. a fellow named dan harris is the chief agent at the border patrol academy. where is that, by the way? mr. cantu: artesia, new mexico. brian: i want to show a clip of him talking about the training.

[video clip] >> we are going to be tough on you. it is not going to be an easy task to get through this academy. >> that means you, raymundo! >> yes, sir. >> we expected to come in good physical condition. you will be become proficient in border control operations code , law, use of firearms, and proficient in driving our vehicles, offload vehicles spanish-language, use of force, , policy and procedures, tactics, techniques. we provide you every tool you need to protect yourself and protect the people of this great country. brian: accurate? mr. cantu: i think i might have seen that video before or something much like it. i think the academy is -- i recognize some of the themes in that film. so i would say it's pretty accurate. you know, the academy is

designed -- it's sort of a hybrid between a police academy and military training. so there is a lot of academic studying and book learning you have to do. immigration law. and there's also firearms training, pursuit training, physical training. and, of course, the border patrol academy, much like any military or law enforcement training, is sort of designed to break you down and build you back up again in the image of border patrol agent. or any kind of enforcement officer. brian: how much time do you have to commit to them before you -- when you begin? mr. cantu: the border patrol, unlike the military, you don't sign a contract for any particular amount of time. a lot of people drop out and leave the academy or leave during the field training. so there's no time commitment. brian: let me show you a hearing back in 2010 where it talks about water patrol agents.

the customs and commissioner is talking to a former senator of arkansas, but it will give you a chance to see whether this is still the truth eight years later. [video clip] >> understanding is that the cbp policy is to do a polygraph on all the applicants. >> that is our goal, sir. >> and my understanding is you are only doing 10% right now. is that right? >> that's accurate. >> of those who are polygraphed, what percentage are found unsuitable? >> approximately 60%. >> 60%. can we extrapolate from that, if there is 90% or even 85% of the folks that are on this chart here that have not been polygraphed, that maybe 60% of them might not pass the polygraph if they took the test? >> we have done reached the same

conclusion. >> did they give you a polygraph test? >> i did not receive a polygraph test. >> do know what he is talking about? >> i do. this was a thing had at the time when i joined. i joined at the tail end of the bush hiring push. similarly, there had been a call for the more border patrol agents. as part of a wave that brought staffing to the highest it has ever been. >> do have to have a college degree? >> you do not. is there an officer and enlisted corps? >> no, sir. everyone joined at the same level. even if you have a bachelors degree our masters degree or a law enforcement background, everybody is thrown into the

academy and starts from the same place. you have to work your way up. you cannot just apply straight at the academy. positionto do -- for a , you have to do two years of probation before you are eligible for a promotion. >> in your book, we learned a lot about your dreams and nightmares. what? -- why? >> reason that that is a central part of your book, and the border patrol, there is not really a culture of talking about the ways you might be affected by the job. again, i think that is similar to all law enforcement, military positions. me, as 70 who entered the border patrol with a lot of questions was from a more a lot ofstandpoint, those questions really faded up, just in order to wake

show up at work, and do the job. i think a lot of the intensity and violence you are exposed to and participating in at different levels, you do not process that or talk about it out loud. related to myas subconscious. it manifested it self in dreams. those dreams, when i look back at them, they were alarmed bells calling you back to my sense of who i was outside of this job on who i was before i joined. calling me back to my sense of humanity i think. >> at what point did you say i do not take a lot to do this anymore and why? leavingn so deep that it was a waytrol,

out. it was a way to leave but to still be moving forward. if you had asked me at the time, i do not think i would have told you i have to move out. i think it was the subconscious thing that did not become obvious to me. i finally didwhen those dreams seriously. i was at a dental appointment and the dentist gave me the news that i was grinding my teeth in my sleep and said that i had grounds through several layers of enamel. he said, this is serious. you have a stressful job? what is going on? leading up to the claimant, i

have had dreams where i would grind my teeth or clench until my teeth would explode in my mouth and was the first time i was presented with a real-world manifestation of that dream life, that subconscious life. that was the moment where as sort of had to sit back and say maybe i am not dealing with this just fine. maybe i'm not all right. did you first come across a dead body in the desert? onlye first, which is the one i came across, was after i for the borderng patrol for a year and a half or more. it was in the summertime. you find a lot more bodies in the summer because of the heat. it was august.

it was in the middle of a hot afternoon and two boys flagged down a passing vehicle. it was an agent and they had actually put rocks out in the road to stop passing vehicles. people drove around them. nobody stopped for them. these two boys, it was the nephew of the man who died and the nephew's friends. there were also think religion they crossed the border together. dehydration and from taking the uppers the smugglers give you. caffeine uppers. i will never forget that. i remember his face. i remember his body. more than that, i remember having to explain to his nephew why they cannot stay with his

body and why they cannot bring his body back to mexico with them and explaining the bureaucratic procedures by which they would have to contact the mexican consulate and ask to obtain in sheet of paper and arrange for the repatriation of the body. it was there is -- there was this moment where there was an extreme disconnection happening from the immediacy of this inson staff and humanity entering this bureaucratic system that was entirely severed from that. >> how often do you find a dead immigrant or what language you want to use in the desert on their way trying to get across the border? >> this is something i really do not think we talk about enough. i do not think we talk about it to the extent that we need to. hundreds of people die every year in the desert.

something like 6000 to 7000 people have died crossing the desert since the year 2000. ofs is a result of a policy enforcement through deterrence. by which we have heavily and the the urban areas more easily crossed areas. we pushed the crossings out to the more remote parts of the desert like the part of the desert where this man died. number of deaths has remained quite constant. lester, i am sure you heard many times, the news that crossings were down. they were at their lowest point in 14 years. deaths didof border not go down. it went up in relation to the year before. despite the fact that fewer people are crossing the border, it is still remaining as dangerous or becoming even more dangerous. that seems to be an essential

missing piece from our conversation about immigration reform. bliss go back to the map for a second. the border is 1900 miles long. how much of that has any kind of a wall? >> i think there is approximately 700 miles that has some sort of barrier. >> where would that be? >> the actual wall that we would think of as a high wall tends to be in urban areas. anywhere on that map where you see a dot, you can bet there will be pedestrian fencing in the area. much of the other terriers are vehicle barriers. or x shapedsts beach style barriers. the walls that we have were part of an earlier iteration that we

have right now. we had a build a wall bill passed through congress. that is what gave us much of the fencing that we have now. >> how many border patrol agents are there? >> i cannot say the exact number. i know that it rose to about a high of 20,000. i think it dropped from 50,000 to 18,000. attrition is really high in border patrol. much higher than most law enforcement agencies. i settled some mention the of border patrol agents makes it the largest in the country. there are more border patrol agent that there are fbi or dea or any other agents. >> how much were you paid? >> because i have an

undergraduate degree, i started at a slightly higher rate of pay. tohink i started making 38 -- $38,000 to $42,000 salary. the border patrol is really set up because of this problem of attrition sort of rapidly give you increases in pay. after you are with the border patrol, if you remain for six months, you get a pay increase. after another year, you get another pay increase. even with a shorter amount of time in, you can be making $60,000 to $80,000 a year in short order. >> what do most of the agency work with think of the border patrol organization? >> it is hard to say. it is important for me to say that i have not been a border patrol agent for years.

, in no way, speak on behalf of the agency or the people in it. i can say that i think most agents, while they are there doing the work, -- i think they often agents feel sof maligned by the press and the media, so i think it creates a culture where it is a bit insular and tribal. there is a fraternal feeling among border's much like there might be in the military where the outside world does not understand most of a we do so there is a lot of pride, i think. >> here's a bit from the atlantic magazine bit that they did on border patrol corruption. calls for the hiring of

another 5000 border patrol officers. the risk is that we do exactly what we did last time. we will increase the number by an additional 6000. >> we dramatically ramped up border patrol agent. you have to hire people quickly. they cut corners. in bordera real fight patrol corruption. on average, more than one agent has been arrested every month for the past 11 years. >> but his reaction to hearing that? people would be that corrupt to get into border patrol? >> i'm glad you played that clip because i think it is really important to be talking about that, especially as someone who came into that last hiring push. clip was a moment in that

where you heard audio of i don't not know who was saying this but we run the risk of doing same thing we have already done. i think that is absolutely true right now. without any sort of policy exactlywe are doing what we did before. we allocated more money for fencing. we know what the outcome of that will be. cutting corners is just going to happen when you are hiring thousands of people at once. the border patrol academy in artesia had to ramp that up with a big operation. i think a lot of the training requirements have changed. the difference thing that the old patrol, there is a more rigorous academy.

they had more rigorous spanish training, which i think is the most important element that is being cut. >> i have another article here from 2017. the headlight on it is the border patrol corruption arrested agents were in recent years. president trump promised to hire 5500 new agents could make the problem worse. how are they corrected, and did -- corrupted? >> i never witnessed any corruption. the people that i was close to, i never heard rumbling or never knew anybody who was accused of corruption. however, there were

acquaintances. you would hear about, they would disappear. they had been relieved of duty relegated to a different assignment while they would run their investigation. it is a problem that i saw. there also two different kinds of corruption. the big concern along the southern border is agents being corrupted by the drug cartels. if you think about it, the border patrol standing at a checkpoint, they have to do is wave one car through the checkpoint and get a payoff through some cartel group. i think that is the fear and the danger and why they use things like polygraph testing. whong to weed out people

you suspect could end up doing that. >> what is going on at the border? what are all the things that are happening coming back and forth? we talked about the drugs and all of the the break it down for people who just come into this country versus those who are moving drugs into the country. i wish i knew an actual number. request of what i am telling you, all i can speak to is my personal x. 's in the years when i was there. i apprehended many drug smugglers, seized many loads of narcotics. arrested people who had extensive criminal records. encountered that i were people looking for a better life.

>> the widget happen if the situation was reversed and americans were trying to get into mexico. ?full of the mexican government do about people trying to get into their country? >> i think you can look at what the mexican government does along its southern border with guatemala. i think that gives you the answer right there. it is extremely militarized. [no audio] [no audio] often working hand-in-hand with some of these smuggling cartels.

i think the other thing that is important to consider is these migrants coming from central america, which is now the majority of migrants. i think laughter was the first official year that migrants from central america exceeded migrants from mexico. those migrants, their lives are at risk. there being dehumanized at every step along the journey. on the crossing across the border between guatemala and mexico. there are at risk during that entire 1000, 2000, 3000 mile-long journey across the interior of mexico. there is a man who is the leader of the arizona -- describing what he does.

this comes from usa today. >> when i was a kid, this one quote kennedy had always stuck with me. your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." once we find them, then we put the cameras out. then we start saying, this is where we will start game number two. game number two turns into a chessmaster. they're trying to outsmart you but you are trying to outsmart them. by doing that, we end up playing a game of lacrimal. whack-a-mole. isthe first thing i notice the language of that man and many like him used to talk about the migrants. the idea that this is a game of walkable. that is a metaphor that, at its

dehumanizes to think of these migrants on his people but as animals. on can share with you is my opinion. the tim naylor foleys. >> exactly. i think they are vigilantes not trained by the united states governments. >> what is your sense of most border patrol agent to work with? what did they consider their job to be, and would they want to stop the traffic? >> you know, the border patrol , the that i worked with

think that is so -- the thing that is so strange and that becomes lost is how routine all of this becomes. i think a lot of these questions you're asking and a lot of the questions that i had going into the border patrol to get relegated to the back of your mind. agents when they show up for work, they're like, what kind of position do i have today, will i be able to do my crossword puzzle or watch my ipad or am i going to have to drive around? border patrol agent, first and foremost, there concerned with the safety of the people you work with. you want to do your job. the agents that i knew and that i admired, they want to treat

the people with respect and dignity. i also saw people who did not operate that way. when you're talking about as many as 18,000 agents, you are talking about every different kind of person you can imagine. werew good agents who dedicated to work and i knew agents who i really disagreed with the way that they did work. >> what do you think of the movie world that portrays the border, and the one i'm thinking about is the cardio, which came back in 2015. there is another one coming out in june. what does the cardio -- secariio o mean? >> it is the name for a cartel hitman. an assassin. >> did you live in the area? how did you describe it?

>> the way that i would describe is, is almostaso surreal -- it is almost surreal. another element of why it is so surreal and that it is simultaneously so normal. to living conditioned in this safe environment in el paso. in the years when i was living there, it was sort of at the peak violence. is,, -- for your viewers who do not know, those the most violent city for years. it was the murder capital of the world. i think that place is saddled with so much mythology. we mythologize the border in general, but specifically el paso.

movies are part of that. destructionath and and all of this pervade the way we think about that area. the imagined everyone their living in a cloud of violence. it is true and not true, and that is why it is so surreal. here's a little clip. >> there she is. >> 1900, president kathy went to visit president diaz. visit president diaz. a guy almost walked up to taft and blew his brains out. that didn't happen.

>> when you see those vehicles and all, does that remind you of your experience? i always think about, when i think about living in el paso driving on interstate 10, and you drive right next to the border, you can look out at some grande andee the rio juarez on the other side. you are thing to cities. that part of it is familiar. there is a scene from the same lm leasee bodies hanging from a highway overpass.

i think they said "welcome to juarez." that is the damaging part because it encourages us to think of the entire border as .he landscape of devastation in the second part, i think these people are in it. when you see this, the music sets the mood. tell us what to you think of this. >> how would you define terrorism? the current definition as andy individual or group that uses violence to achieve a political goal. the administration believes that fit thatcartel definition.

>> do you want to see this thing through? i am going to have to get dirty. ♪ turning you loose. loose? >> adios. [laughter] >> i do not mean to laugh, but how much of that is accurate? >> it is important to recognize pervadesnce in mexico mexican society in so many ways but it is also important not to glorify that.

when i think about going there come i think about visiting it with my mom. we were walking to the big, open marketplace. my mother fell in a pothole on the street while we were crossing the road. really badly twisted her ankle. the light turned green. the cars were about to go and we were panicking trying to get her up and people stop to their cars, one man sort of help traffic with his hands. people came and lifted my mother out of the street and helps her to the sidewalk. they just love their cars idle in the street. -- it is a theme of humanity that you would expect to see anywhere. you do not see moments like that depicted in these films.

we lose sight of the humanity of the people that live in these places in i think that is problematic. it encourages people to think of every border town as a place we should fear going to. >> how much did your view about this whole thing change in the time you are in the border patrol? and changed dramatically. change, if iiggest had to try to describe it, is that i entered the border patrol with all of these macro level questions. sociopolitical questions. policy questions. that being on the border and seeing the reality day in and day out would give me answers to those questions, but those questions really faded away.

when i look back at the time in what i reallyrol, remember are those human interactions that i had. those conversations i had. that is what i carry with me every day. i think that is what >> was conversation do you remember the most? >> there was a man and a woman left binder -- by the ribbon the desert. >> whether trying to get across the border to come to the united states? >> they were part of a larger group, full of migrants just going forward. are separated and left behind because they cannot keep up, the woman was pregnant, that is why she cannot keep up. they were lost for three days after the group left them, they were drinking filthy water from cattle thanks. they made to a village and the

border patrol got caught. i started talking with them and it turns out that this pregnant woman had grown up in iowa and spoke english. she was a schoolteacher in iowa. i think her husband saw that we were talking and that we had a connection and he leaned over whole arrestp the and deportation thing? respect to theoy border and lettuce prospect in the mexico? the a brother. i didn't hesitate, i said no, this is my job. you know i can't do that. i think them in. i remember asking the names and our member introducing myself to them. i remember wanting to remember them. i had this connection, i wanted

that wanted to be said. and for the child to be safe. a couple of hours later, i went back out on patrol, i was sitting in my car and i forgotten their names. the reason that encounter sticks with me so much is because i think that is the first step in dehumanization. forgetting what makes someone an individual. >> what should this country do if you are invited to the oval office and the president said what do you think we ought to do? >> i think we need to have a conversation about border issues. that starts from a place of complexity and not simplicity. talkingwe need to be about this in a way that he knowledges the immensity and the nuance of this issue. the rhetoric has to change.

if i had the other policymakers, i would say we thatto change this policy i think has precipitated a humanitarian crisis. those numbers i mentioned earlier at the border desk, they are not abstract to me. i care the image of one of those people lost their lives with me. i think that is unstoppable. that hundreds of people die crossing our borders. i think that has to change. it's a bit we can change right away. from ait is a clip documentary.

[speaking spanish] >> what drives a man like that? >> it they shut down the psyche and the brain and makes us human. you begin to look at what you do as a job and to look at the people that you are charged with killing as not people. so when i was writing this book, this man story and his testimony made an impression on me because

i saw parallels between the disconnection that he had to his work and the disconnection that i had started to develop in my work. brian: what are you doing now to make a living? writer, part-time instructor and bartender. at the university of arizona. mr. cantu: i am a writer. a part-time instructor and coordinator and bartender. brian: instructing where? mr. cantu: the university of arizona. brian: teaching? mr. cantu: i teach part-time at the university's poetry center. sort of community creative writing and literature seminars. brian: why bartender? mr. cantu: it's a good way to make some pocket money and i love the people i work with. i am an aficionado of agave spirits. i found a place where i get to do all of those things. brian: in what city? mr. cantu: tucson. ryan: you mention your mother a lot. where is mom now? mr. cantu: she is outside the

town where i grew up, close to prescott. i have half brothers and half-sisters on my father's side. i have two half-sisters and an older half-brother -- two half-brothers and an older half-sister. brian: how long did writing this book take you and what do you think of the process? mr. cantu: i spent maybe five years writing this book. for me, the book really began as an accounting of my own time in the border patrol and the way that i participated in what now when i look at it is the perpetuation of these flawed and violent policies. what really changed my thinking as i had already started writing

this book is when i became friends with this man jose and his story is what really transform to me because it was the first time i had seen behind the curtain at what happens to all of the people that i would have been apprehending and sending on their way after they left the border patrol holding facility by becoming close with his family -- facility. by becoming close with his family, i saw the ways that deportation rips through their lives even though they never crossed a border. brian: you end the book with jose and his wife and three children. where are they today? mr. cantu: his wife and his three children are still in the u.s. brian: are they u.s. citizens? mr. cantu: his three children are u.s. citizens. >> where is jose? mr. cantu: for his safety, i cannot say where he is. what i can say is his life is very precarious.

he is not safe. i think much like many people who are in his situation, he lives in a state of constant fear. brian: you should point out, that in your book you have him after being back and forth a couple of times he was at that end of the book back in mexico. mr. cantu: yes. the book ends with his voice. that is a very intentional decision because i think the voices of people like jose -- those are the voices that have the most to tell us. i think we can learn from listening to someone in jose's position than we can listening to a policy maker, politician, border patrol agent. brian: let's say the wall is

built and another 5500 border patrol agents are created, what will the impact of that be? mr. cantu: it is hard to say what is certain, but people will still find a way up, over, through, around. i think without any kind of meaningful policy reform, it doesn't do anything to address the problem of the people that are here. and the problem of all these people separated from their families, the print -- problem of the dreamers living in this legal limbo. none of that addresses the day to day realities those people are living with. brian: you quote your mother in your book as saying that she spent her career slowly losing

my sense of purpose? that happened to you? mr. cantu: absolutely. it happens sort of by design. when you step into an institution like the border patrol, you are giving over all of these parts of your identity and what makes you who you are to this institution in order to help it perpetuated goals. i very quickly lost sight of those questions that i entered with of sort of my sense of who i was before i came in and if i didn't have someone like my mother as a tether sort of calling me back to that, i don't know that i would have come out from it in the same way. brian: how long did she send -- spent with the parks service? mr. cantu: she spent half her career with the parks service and then the other half with the forest service and she retired from that job. she spent her entire career working for the federal government. brian: last question. what does she think of your book?

mr. cantu: i think my mom is infinitely more happy with the career choice to be a writer than she was with my career choice to be a border patrol agent. she read the book during many different stages of its writing and she is a great, loving, supportive mother, as you would expect. brian: the name of the book is "the line becomes a river: dispatches from the border" our guest has been francisco cantu. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018][captioning performed by the national captioning institute,which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪

visit us at q&a.org, they are also available as his podcast. >> are leftovers contingent 4:00 p.m. eastern with a look at the u.s. relationship with japan and taiwan. and journalists from the washington post discussed covering the trumpet ministration worried this is hosted by arizona state university us rock high school of journalism. and a look at the legislative agenda for congress, the houses back tomorrow at new, eastern for general speeches with legislative business at 2:00 when they will take up a bill allowing terminally ill patients detracts primitive drugs. members will provide -- present a bill for violence in schools. they in the weekend expected to a bill to fund the

government passed march 23 and to resume debate on was legend that would ease certain vacuum regulations. thea final vote expected by end of the week, at some point the senate also plans to nominate the customs and border protection commissioner. live as always, and the senate live on c-span two. >> tonight, on c-span's landmark cases, we will explore the 1886 where a san francisco city ordinance discriminated against a chinese laundromat owner. the ruling found in favor of laundromat owner and establish that people that give a protection under the 14th amendment applies to immigrants as well as citizens area examined this case and the high at columbia university.

luckythe author of the ones. at josh blackman, the associate professor in houston and the founder and president of the husband is to take. tonight.dmark cases one is in with the free c-span radio app. for background on each case while you watch, order your landmark cases companion book. it is available for a .95. for an additional resource, there is a link on our website in the interactive constitution. hisresident trump aligned gun and school safety proposal on twitter this morning. he said legislation is moving forward on bump stocks. he says have trained, expertise is would be allowed to carry concealed guns subject to state law and support armed guards in school. on the 18-21 age limit, watching

court cases and rulings before acting. states are making this decision, things are moving rapidly on this but not much political support to put it mildly. the national rifle association spokeswoman and political commentator dana last talked about gun policy at the annual gathering of the conservative political action conference. >> we make thoseconnections, we exchange ideas a w