Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant Communities - ILRC

Inspiring Leadership in Immigrant CommunitiesJanuary 2003and the Border Patrol has offices throughout many parts of the interior of the UnitedStates, including near San Jose, California.It also is important to emphasize that everyone in the United States, even people whocross the border illegally, have rights in the United States. The U.S. Constitutionprotects these rights. Some participants in this negotiation might get stuck onthinking that because some of the people affected by the Border Patrol’s actions are inthe United States illegally, they have no rights and therefore there is not much tonegotiate. On the contrary, everyone in the United States has some constitutionalrights and the real issue in this negotiation is about how people should be treated.d. Of course this is not a real negotiation. If it were more realistic we would allow formany hours of preparation and more time for the actual negotiation. But try to makethe negotiation reasonably true to life.e. Please prepare as in teams, but those playing INS officials should not prepare withthose playing community members.C. Negotiation Exercise (60 minutes)Tell the participants the following:• You will break into two groups. —One group will role-play INS Border Patrolofficials and the other group will role-play community members. I will give youeach an information sheet that provides the background for the negotiation andspecifies the role you will play.• You will have 30 minutes to prepare for the negotiation and then 30 minutes torole-play the actual negotiation.• Remember the tips discussed earlier—try to persuade the group with whom youare negotiating to do what you want them to do.• Watch the clock because we might have to cut people off if the exercise isrunning over the time limit. I will give a hand signal when the time is almost up.• While other participants are presenting, those watching should take notes onthings they think worked well and things that could be improved. We will discussthe negotiation exercise afterwards.• During performances, everyone must stay in role. For example, those playingcommunity members must act like advocates who know the importance ofpossibly having to return and negotiate with the same INS official for someoneelse another day.11:40-12:00 Debriefing of the Negotiation ExerciseThe trainer will facilitate a discussion of the negotiation exercise.Ask the participants the following:12-7