Defund the police vs. Defund Border Patrol

"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding" - Albert Einstein.  Our job at Friendship Park is to create peace through friendship and understanding across the border and barriers in general.  One could say, ironically, that Border Patrol's job is also to create peace at the border.  I say ironically because what the Friends of Friendship Park is working towards and defending where possible is a connection between people from either side of the border and border patrol's job of stopping criminal activity becomes a lot easier if the two sides go there separate ways and there is a clear divide.  The Friends of Friendship Park mission is to create a space that is conducive to a mother who has been separated by immigration status from her son for twenty years to eat together being able to share a meal with him and her new grand children and greet each other with hugs, a space where people can volunteer in a binational garden to promote together the importance of native flora to improve our shared ecosytem and invoke the practice of 8,000 years of harmony with earth by the Kumeyaay, the region's first peoples, a place where people can have cross border religious ceremonies, and a place where people from completely different perspectives on life are encouraged to over come their differences and get to know thier similarities to create understanding, trust, and friendship.  Our mission is for the park to become a shinning example for the world of how long term peace can be achieved through understanding.  

So what, you ask, does all this flower power talk have to do with a dangerous situation at the border.  Would binational yoga class or planting a native tree together across the border or even a mother hugging her grandchildren stop someone with a gun or immediate violent intentions?  I wouldn't count on it.  And, looking at it from an enforcement mentality, gatherings of any kind, create vulnerabilities for criminal activity.  So where the Fofp mission and the bp mission actually coincide is creating peace.  The problem lies in that enfocement mentality is the only one of the two that is actually part of Us border policy.  So peace advocates end up clashing with enforcement officers because our goals aren't included and we are put in a position where we have to somehow sneak peace and friendship in and this, in turn, is looked at by enforcement officers who are 100% in charge, as suspicious activity or activity that could leave "vulnerabilities".  So, in general, like activists with the Black lives matter movement and defund the police, the Friends of Friendship Park isn't focused on getting rid of all enforcement but rather shifting resources and priorities to include other aspects of security.  When someone is having a mental breakdown and yelling and screaming even making threatening remarks, advocates of defund the police would say a mental health specialist would be much more appropriate emergency call than the police but funding is focused on enforcement so the police show up which puts the officer in an awkward position that could actually escalate the situation.   How is someone trained to address an emergency violent situation supposed to react to a person who is not violent but out of control?   They shouldn't have to answer that and when they are asked to they may respond innapropriately or even fatally.  At our park, there are community needs and the only funding, resources, and policy is to support enforcement.  We need support for our mission of friendship across barriers.  We need to shift funds and priorities so that cross border understanding is protected at our border and so that we can finally work in conjunction with local border patrol instead of clashing with them.