US Mexico Border
June 22, 2000 "¡Corranle, allí viene la
migra!", translated into English, this
means "Run, there comes immigration!"
This is what illegal immigrants shout
everyday when they are about to cross
the Rio Grande in search for better lives.
Unfortunately, not many get
through alive because of the militarization that has
developed on the U.S.
border with Mexico. Operation Rio Grande continues a
process put in motion
over a century ago by the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. It
tries to erase the
reality of a social geographical order that defies neat
national divisions
and impose a narrow notion of citizenship on people on both
sides of the
international boundary. In the process, the U.S., like all
countries to
varying degrees, elevates national citizenship to a position of
primacy and
lessens the inherent humanity of those on the wrong side of the
social and
territorial boundaries. Operation Rio Grande, launched in August
1997, in
Brownsville, Texas, was a special multi-year operation designed to gain
and
maintain control of specific border areas through a combination of
new
technology and additional staffing. At the start of the operation, 69
Border
Patrol agents were detailed to Brownsville to intensify existing
enforcement
effort. In September of that same year, the Border Patrol
deployed special
response teams to those ports-of-entry where increased
numbers of fraudulent
entry was expected. In the Fiscal Year of 1998, 260 new
Border Patrol agents
were added to the McAllen Sector and 205 to the Laredo
Sector. An important
feature of Operation Rio Grande has been the integration
of a broad range of INS
enforcement operations. Studies show that the crime
rate in Brownsville alone
dropped by more than 20% in 1998. (U.S. INS) The
origins of the U.S. Mexico
boundary are to be found in the imperial
competition between Spain, France, and
Britain for possessions in North
America. Lack of agreement between the three
imperial powers over the
location of the boundaries separating their territories
in North America led
to disagreement between Mexico and an expansionist U.S.
After Mexico
gained its independence in 1821, many U.S. leaders argued for
taking part or
all of Mexico’s territory. Numerous prominent U.S. politicians,
driven by the
ideology of Manifest Destiny, considered taking Mexico "a divine
right."
(Acuna, 1988) As tensions mounted between the U.S. and Mexico over
Texas,
the U.S. deliberately provoked Mexico by sending troops into
territory
claimed by Mexico in early 1846. Battles between U.S. and Mexican
troops ensued,
quickly resulting in full-scale war. The war raged on for two
years, largely in
favor of the U.S., and ended with the U.S. taking over
Mexico City. On February
2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was
signed, and Mexico was forced to
cede half of its territory to the U.S. Under
the treaty’s terms, the U.S.
annexed a territory equivalent in size to that
of Western Europe, and absorbed
100,000 Mexican citizens and 200,000
Native Americans living in the territory.
(Herzog, 1990) The decades
following the imposition of the new U.S. – Mexico
boundary saw widespread
violence as U.S. authorities and non-State actors
established their
dominance. The Mexican Revolution and the accompanying
socio-political
turmoil between 1910, and 1920, caused great concern for U.S.
authorities.
Tension along the boundary with Mexico quickly subsided
thereafter.
(Griswold, 1990) Pacification did not mean control by the U.S.
Migration between
the U.S. and Mexico long preceded the imposition of the
modern day boundary.
Mexican migration to the U.S. was not really
significant in scale or in
geographical extent until the 20th Century. In
1942, the Bracero (Bra-zeh-roh)
Program was implemented. It was a
contract labor program in response to labor
shortages brought about by the
U.S. entry into World War II. (The Bracero
Program, 1996) Furthermore,
the INS practice of legalizing unauthorized migrants
and turning them into
braceros, or ‘drying out the wetbacks,’ increased
unauthorized immigration
from Mexico as the news spread that the easiest manner
to obtain a bracero
contract was to enter the U.S. illegally. When the U.S.
Congress
officially ended the program in 1964, the previously legal migratory
flow
simply went underground. As the 1970’s approached, calls to
enhance
enforcement along the U.S. and Mexico boundary increased
significantly. (The
Bracero Program, 1996) From U.S. perspective, the
modern U.S. – Mexico border
has always represented a line of control; one
that contains the national body
politic and that regulates the flow of goods
and people from without. Needless
to say, there has long been a huge gap
between this territorial-state-centric
ideal and the reality of a
transnational world. That said, the U.S. has long
made efforts, albeit
inconsistent ones, to achieve this ideal as part of its
efforts to realize
national sovereignty. In 1921, the U.S. government passed the
first
quantitative immigration restrictions in U.S. history. As a result,
the
U.S. congress established the Border Patrol in 1924. (Martinez, 1995)
The U.S.
Border Patrol is the organization that polices the entry of
illegal immigrants
into our country. The official mission of the United
States Border Patrol is to
protect the boundaries of the United States by
preventing illegal entry, and by
detecting, interdicting, and apprehending
illegal aliens, smugglers, and
contraband. Today, the United States Border
Patrol consists of 21 sectors. A
Chief Patrol Agent heads each Border
Patrol Sector. There are 145 stations
located throughout the continental
United States, and in Puerto Rico. The Border
Patrol controls the border
by land, sea, and air. It has jurisdiction across all
United States
borders and at least 25 miles off the border. The agents are
responsible to
check factories and homes for illegal workers. (U.S. INS)
"Border
control" particularly from Mexico, emerged as important topics in
U.S.
politics. This was due to the mid-1970’s economic recession, rising
numbers
of Border Patrol apprehensions, and aggressive INS media
campaigns
highlighting the scale of the illegal alien problem. The trend
continued through
the 1980’s reaching its apex in the early 1990’s. U.S.
public opinion now
consistently shows that there is strong opposition to
illegal immigration.
(Cornelius, 1994) Over the last several years, the U.S.
has seen increasing
calls and efforts to fight unauthorized immigration and
boundary related crime,
specifically drug trafficking. There has been an
unprecedented growth in federal
resources dedicated to boundary policing.
Unauthorized immigration and an out of
control border region fueled the
political sentiment for immigration
enforcement, which climaxed with the
passage of the Immigration and Control Act
of 1986. (UTA, 1992) Former
President Ronald Reagan starkly framed unauthorized
immigration as a national
security issue, warning, "The simple truth is that
we’ve lost control of our
borders and no nation can do that and survive."
(Cornelius, 1994) The U.S. –
Mexico border region is the fastest growing
border zone in the Americas,
perhaps in the world. With a population of 11
million people and an economic
output of $150 billion, the region now has an
economy larger than that of
Poland. Approximately 230 million people and 82
million cars enter the U.S.
from Mexico each year. In 1994, the implementation
of the North American Free
Trade Agreement intensified this trend. About 2.8
million trucks crossed the
border that year. The "NAFTAization" and growing
militarization of the U.S. –
Mexico boundary, are taking place simultaneously.
(Divine, 1999)(UTA, 1992)
In an abstract from a book to be published by Harcourt
Brace &
Company is a very interesting account of the typical journey of most
of the
illegal immigrants that cross through the border of
Matamoros/Brownsville.
Most of the immigrants cross the river with
assistance from a patero. His job is
to recruit people who want to go to the
U.S. in search of better fortune. The
immigrants don’t have to pay anything
in advance. Instead, they pay when they
arrive in Houston. They cross the
river naked, then take a car to Sarita, Texas.
In Sarita, they get off
the car before the immigration checkpoint and walk for 4
or 5 hours until
they have well passed the checkpoint. From there the pateros
pick them up and
take them to Houston to deliver to their families or friends. A
trip normally
costs around $800. (Harper’s, 1998) The militarization of the
border is
keeping many illegal aliens from entering the U.S., but many of them
get
killed in the process. CNN News reports that authorities recovered the
bodies
of two people who drowned in the Rio Grande just yards from U.S.
border
agents in a dramatic scene captured on Mexican television. Rescue
crews found
the bodies of 26-year-old Walter Maria Sandoval, of San Lucas,
Michoacan, and
another victim who has not been identified yet. A Mexican TV
(Televisa) crew was
filming in Matamoros on Thursday, June 8, when three men
plunged into the Rio
Grande and tried to swim back to Mexico after a
Border Patrol squad apparently
blocked their entry into the United States.
Two of the men quickly began
flailing and sinking, as the river's current
swept them away. The third man made
it ashore on the Mexican side and ran
off, Televisa reported. U.S. border patrol
agents and Mexican authorities
both saw the men drown, but none knew how to
swim, the Mexico City newspaper
Reforma reported. Scores of Mexicans have
drowned in recent years in the Rio
Grande, a point of entry for thousands of
illegal immigrants to the United
States. (CNN News, 2000) Perhaps the illegal
immigrants face fines and
penalties for crossing that way, but in their mind
working for food is most
important. Hard labor, usually in agriculture, is all
they can get. Jobs that
not many citizens want to perform because of the
physical demands, and prefer
to live off of welfare and working people’s
taxes, but then complain about
the problem with the Border Patrol. If they are
bringing most foods to their
tables, why complain? It’s obvious that some sort
of control, which now
exists, is necessary. Many people do enter the country
legally, and in many
cases, are given political asylum because of the situations
in their
countries. Mexico is not one of those countries, but is yet another
boulder
for fleeing refugees to cross before getting to the home of the
free.
Bibliography
Acuna, R. (1988). Occupied America - A History
of Chicanos. New York: Harper
Collins Publishers Authorities recover
bodies of two people who drowned in Rio
Grande. (2000, June 10). CNN News
[Online]. P10. Available
www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/americas/06/10mexico.borderdeaths.ap/
Cornelius,
W., Philip, M., James, H., (1994). Controlling Immigration: A
Global
Perspective. Stanford University Press Divine R. et al, (1999).
America Past and
Present. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. Griswold del
Castillo, R. (1990). The
Treaty of Guadalupe - Hidalgo. University of
Oklahoma Press Ferrying dreamers to
the other side. (1998) Harper’s, 1781
(297) p.22-26 Herzog, L. (1990). Where
North Meets South. Austin Center
for Mexican American Studies. University of
Texas at Austin Low Intensity
Conflict Doctrine Comes Home. (1992). University
of Texas at Austin Press
Martinez, O. (1995). Troublesome Border. Tucson.
University of Arizona
Press The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the INS.
(1996). New York and
London. Routledge U.S. Border Patrol [Online] U.S.
Immigration and
Naturalization Service. Available http://www.usbp.com