The writer Francisco Cantú, who spent years as a United States Border Patrol agent, braced for the fury of anti-immigration figures and his former colleagues when he published a haunting memoir this year delving into the authorities’ frequent abuse of immigrants in the Southwest borderlands.
But Mr. Cantú wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of criticism he received from the other end of the political spectrum, including undocumented writers and artists around the United States who view the Border Patrol as a paramilitary force inciting fear and destroying families.
Some called Mr. Cantu, 32, a third-generation Mexican-American, a «Nazi» for joining the Border Patrol in the first place. Others appeared at his readingsscreaming «vendido» — sellout — in his direction. Critics suggested boycotting Mr. Cantú’s book, «The Line Becomes a River,» branding him a traitor who profits in others’ blood.
«I don’t see why Cantú gets to be absolved and celebrated by saying he paid witness to the tragedy he was complicit in upholding,» said Jesús Valles, 31, a playwright and public high school teacher in Austin, Texas, who was among those protesting Mr. Cantú’s book signings.
«It’s hard to even explain the fear that the Border Patrol instills in people like me,» added Mr. Valles, who was smuggled into Texas as a child before later gaining legal authorization to remain in the country. «It’s a dread of being hunted down like an animal, of seeing your siblings deported. And Cantú gets a fancy book deal after being one of the guys holding the guns.»
The tension around Mr. Cantú and his book is igniting a debate over who gets to tell stories of life along the border. It highlights quarrels between Latinos born in the United States and those brought illegally to the country as children, as President Donald J. Trump’s border wall starts to take shape in the Chihuahuan Desert.
In public appearances, Mr. Cantú has asked that protesters be allowed to speak derisively of him and his book. And here in Tucson, where he lives, he said he agreed with some of the charges against him.
«My aim was to describe the Border Patrol from within, not justify it somehow,» Mr. Cantú said. His book recounts incidents of Border Patrol agents slashing the water bottles migrants rely upon to survive, decorating cactuses with women’s underwear or setting the plants ablaze.
«You’re encountering people who are completely terrified of you as law enforcement,» he said, reflecting on the experiences of finding lost, dehydrated men and women staggering through mesquite thickets.
Mr. Cantú transitioned from patrolling in the field to intelligence gathering, agonizing over what it meant to be good at such work. He describes in the book the dehumanizing language colleagues used to describe immigrants. He said he had felt that there was no way to effectively speak out against the racist language pervasive in the institution.
He was far from alone: More than half of Border Patrol agents now are Latinos, as the agency has emerged as a source of opportunity in impoverished stretches of the Southwest. Mr. Cantú said that when he joined at age 23, he expected to do the job for a few years before going into diplomacy or law school, hoping to specialize in immigration issues.
Javier Zamora, 28, a poet who emigrated without authorization from El Salvador to the United States at the age of 9, said he understood where some critics of Mr. Cantú were coming from, especially those who point out that the perspective of Mr. Cantú, a United States citizen, stands in contrast to those at risk of deportation.
Still, Mr. Zamora, who now lives in California and is at risk of being forced to leave the United States, said he appreciated much of Mr. Cantú’s book, especially passages where he writes about the mental toll of his work, describing nightmares. «It shows how the border is anything but black and white, but just very, very gray.»
An overriding influence for Mr. Cantú was his mother, a former park ranger in the Guadalupe Mountains near El Paso, Texas. She tried to dissuade him from joining the Border Patrol, and questioned him about the cruelty of agents who allow migrants to die in the desert. «She was concerned for the health of my soul,» he said.
Mr. Valles said it would be too easy to let the writer off the hook for youthful naïveté or not listening to his mother. «People are going to read his book; maybe they’re going to cry in the process,» he continued. «And by reading it, they’ll feel like they’ve helped someone, but they get to close the book and move on. We can’t close the book on the nightmare that the border has become.»
With that point, Mr. Cantú would not disagree. He saidthat his belief that he could be a force for good within the agency was naïve. Writing, he decided, allowed him to convey «the simultaneous beauty and joy and horror of living here and loving this place.»
Immigration ‘is anything but black and white.’