A Decidedly Atypical Day At The Office

Until now, work at the district office has been pretty calm, with a few slow days that were downright boring. Wednesday was not one of those days.

It started when, after an uneventful couple of hours, a couple of guys came in and started asking if this was where the immigration protest was supposed to take place. Myself and the other morning intern, Danyell, were sure that they had just gotten some misinformation or were confused about where they were supposed to be, for an event that we had no knowledge of.

After all, what kind of protester would waltz into a Congressman's office and calmly and innocently ask if they were in the right place for a protest? It made no sense.  

After a while, it came to our attention that there was a group gathering in the parking lot, many wearing shirts displaying the logo of an immigration activist organization. Not only that, but the media had arrived as well, including a reporter and camera crew from the local NBC affiliate, Channel 12. They all gradually made their way up the stairs to the office. The constituent services representative from the office met them and had a very pleasant and cordial exchange, where mutual respect was expressed. They told us they'd be back a little later, however. In the meantime, a fairly ticked-off tenant from elsewhere in the building came in to express his anger at there being a camera crew around, apparently thinking that we had invited them.

A slightly different group came in about half an hour later, wanting to speak about the same subject - immigration reform. There was another cordial exchange, with a little tenser mood to it, and the group again left peacefully. A short interval passed, and here came another group, wearing the same shirts, holding the same signs, and led by the same person. I dialed the immigration rep's extension and apologized for sounding like a broken record, and let him know he was needed out front again.

This third group consisted of a large proportion of children, and the leader said that one of them, named Omar, would like to read something to us. It was a story about his family's immigration situation and a plea for the government to institute immigration reform. The staffer who had been dealing with these groups all along was, again, very cordial, and complimented the boy on having written it all by himself. The group's leader then said that they all had stories they wanted to share. The staffer invited them to either step into the conference room, or outside of the office into the common area, since it was such a large group.

This was when things took an unfortunate turn. The leader refused both of these options, and directed everybody to sit down, citing their frustration with the current state of immigration in the country. Our staffer became stern and warned the leader of the group again that they needed to either step outside or into the conference room to be heard, but as he told them, "a sit-in is not a good strategy, I promise you." He tried at length to reason with them, but When the group's leader still refused, the staffer said, "We'll have to escalate this, then," and added, "I'm very disappointed."

Some minutes passed, which the group occupied by sharing their immigration-related challenges with each other. Once again, the same staffer came out, this time with the District Director. He warned them again that they needed to leave, or comply with his earlier request, and that the police had been called to remove them if they did not comply. They still refused.

At some point around this time, the constituent services director, who is my supervisor, was speaking with me about the unfolding drama. To provide some context, over 100 immigration groups have met with staffers from our office - some of them more than 10 times. The issue of immigration, and the act of engaging immigration activist groups are not new concepts to the office. My supervisor said something like, "we've met with them before - we meet with them all the time - but they've really blown it now. They've really blown it now."

Officers from Gilbert P.D. arrived shortly with bulletproof vests labeled "Criminal Apprehension Unit", and secured the front of the office before calmly and professionally escorting them out, starting with the leader. It ended peacefully as it began, but was way out of character for that group, who are well-known to the office. As the names of the group of activists were being taken (they will be charged with tresspassing), the lady who acted as sort of a deputy leader for the group was heard to say, "We should have just gone in the conference room." There was also strong reason to suspect that SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, was involved and had likely organized the protest (which is typical for them) and put the leaders up to the counterproductive behavior they exhibited at the office.

This is already pretty long, so I'll just end here by saying that the moral of the story is that even if you believe that your cause is just, and you're frustrated that nothing is happening, don't resort to antagonizing the very people who you need on your side, and who want to do what they can to help. Good advice for government and for the rest of life as well.