Ep. 65 - The Honor First - Beacon Series Ft. Jenn Budd - Find the Good News with Oran Parker

EP. 65 - The Honor First - Beacon Series Ft. Jenn Budd, Former Senior Border Patrol Agent & Immigration Rights Activist

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I often say that we have to walk into the darkened recesses of the cave to find the truth. It’s important to learn what is needed, then light lanterns on our way out, illuminating the way so the next travelers can get to that truth safer, and with less suffering. I was reminded of this metaphor again when I recently spoke with former Senior Border Patrol Agent Jenn Budd as a part of the Beacon series on Find the Good News. Instead of going into the dark cave, we traveled along Jenn’s road to the United States-Mexico border, and her eventual exodus from the organization tasked with patrolling this contentious space between our two countries. I first heard Jenn Budd’s voice through the content stream of Laura Grantham Broussard—who joined me in this important conversation with Jenn—and with each of her interviews I could tell that she had a zeal for shining light on the toxic culture and corruption that has stained the U.S. Border Patrol long before the fervor of politically charged media interest in recent years. In our visit with Jenn, we learned that her dissolution with the U.S. Border Patrol, and her subsequent willingness to step into the breach as an immigration rights activist, did not come without deeply personal pain and suffering. Jenn survived her deeply traumatic ordeal in the U.S. Border Patrol, eventually surviving herself, then transmuting all of that scar tissue into a heart that burns with a passion to help others. Rhetoric regarding immigration, asylum, and the United States-Mexico border has been wielded by powerful voices as political weapons, and the image of a tumultuous border has been manipulated to turn a true humanitarian crisis into a profit source for many struggling communities and greed-driven companies. For many of us, these conversations about the border are based on speculation only, and the voices we are listening to often have little-to-no actual experience with on-the-ground border realities. This is not the case with Jenn Budd. Almost two decades ago, the current of life carried Jenn to the border to protect and patrol, but there was no one there to safeguard her from the very organization she had joined. Now, the tide of time has carried Jenn back to this line between two countries, this area that changed her life, a bitter line that is being used to disrupt the quality of life on both its sides, with cruel decisions that will affect families for many generations to come. She, and others like her, believe in a safe and healthy border that is protected by communities working together, with open hands instead of closed fists, with compassion instead of cruelty, celebrating shared cultures, and working to promote a better border vision for of us. This is our conversation with Jenn Budd.

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FOR MORE INFO ON JENN BUDD  >> https://www.facebook.com/jenn.budd or https://twitter.com/BuddJenn 

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FOR MORE INFO ON A NEW BORDER VISION  >> http://bit.ly/2WRPqhu 

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