Prevention Through Deterrence

Last updated

Prevention Through Deterrence is a set of policies instituted by the United States to deter the illegal crossing of its southern border with Mexico. [1] First introduced in a document entitled "Border Patrol Strategic Plan of 1994 and Beyond", this policy has since been used to police high-traffic areas of the Mexico–United States border. [1]

Contents

Since its institution, the number of migrant deaths at the southern border of the U.S. has doubled, with 75% occurring in the Sonoran Desert. [2] Mexico's Secretariat of Foreign Affairs places the number of deaths at roughly 450 per year (including migrant deaths on both the US and Mexican territory). [3]

Locations

In order to use the uninhabited environment of the Sonoran Desert in prevention through deterrence, border patrol increased surveillance in cities along the southern border, which pushed migrant entry points into rural areas. [1] This area is one of the most heavily trafficked areas of the southern border, with about half of border apprehensions occurring in this sector. [2] The harsh conditions of the desert also impact the recovery of remains and work done by humanitarian groups. [2]

Sonoran Desert Sonoran Desert NM (9406659460).jpg
Sonoran Desert

Many migrants also chose to cross the Río Bravo which separates northeast Mexico from Texas because this area is known to have less border security. [4] Migrants from Central America have used the means of the Rio Grande in order to cross the border as well. [5]

Over 22 years (from 1990 to 2012), 2,238 migrant bodies were found in Pima County, Arizona, and 1,813 bodies, over half of those recovered, died from exposure. [6] However, these statistics only include the migrants' bodies that were recovered and only represent a small portion of the border. [6]

History

The United States implemented "Prevention through Deterrence" in the 1990s when immigrants crossing the Rio Grande from Reynosa, Mexico attracted the media's attention pressuring immigration officials and politicians to create a new enforcement policy. [7] The idea is to redirect the routes of the migrants into the Sonoran Desert to discourage migrants from crossing. [7] The United States Government relies on the environment of the Sonoran Desert to deter these migrants without much help from the border enforcement agency. [7]

Previous strategies used by the United States

Operation Blockade

Operation Blockade occurred from September 19, 1993, through October 2, 1993. [8] Border Patrol agents were deployed along the 20-mile segment of the border "on an around-the clock basis and with repairs to the border fence in downtown El Paso area". [8] The intention was to shift the traffic away from the city and "put [migrants] out in areas where they’re on [Border Patrol’s] turf". [6] The impact of the operation was seen immediately, because the usual level of attempted entry and arrest declined. [8] This approach soon evolved into the policy of Prevention through Deterrence. [6]

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a federal statute that prohibited Chinese laborers from entering and re-entering the United States. [9] When Chinese laborers were denied entrance they would enter the United States illegally through the southern border with Mexico. [10]

According to anthropologist Jason De León, it was during the implementation of the Act that an early application of prevention through deterrence by the immigration agents occurred. [6] In order to deter more immigrants from crossing, patrol officers only apprehended immigrants on established routes where they had access to resources; this forced immigrants into more rural areas with less resources. [6] Scholars state, "from their earliest work [by] enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Acts [enacted in 1882], immigration authorities [have] discovered that the desert and mountain wilderness [can] be made effective allies in the fight against undocumented entry". [6]

Debates

Measurement

The effect of prevention through deterrence is measured in different ways. The U.S. government can use the number of immigrant apprehensions to evaluate prevention through deterrence [1] but, this does not measure how many migrants elude border patrol or how many migrants are dying at the southern border. [6] A 1997 report by the Government Accountability Office did use the immigrant death toll to measure the effect of prevention through deterrence. [6] The Department of Homeland Security also publishes the number of migrant deaths; however, it is often the lowest estimate since it is based on the number of remains recovered. [6]

From 2000 to 2022, Pima County, which shares a border with Mexico and contains much of the Sonoran Desert, recorded and investigated 3,655 reports of undocumented border crosser remains. [11]  Out of these remains 64% have been identified and 36% remain unidentified. [11]

Praise

The goals of the Strategic Plan of 1994, as stated by border patrol, were not only to slow the number of migrants crossing the southern border, but to promote confidence in the United States' ability to protect that border. [1] By apprehending more undocumented immigrants using prevention through deterrence, border patrol also wanted to "protect the immigration heritage" that serves as the foundation of the United States today. [1] By using terms like "tactical advantage" and "deterring", government documents format prevention through deterrence as a humane but powerful strategy. [6]

Criticism

One major criticism of prevention through deterrence is that it shifts the blame of migrant deaths from the government to the environment. [6] Without taking into account undetermined causes of death, most migrants crossing the Sonoran Desert have died due to environmental exposure. [11] There have also been concerns about the treatment of human remains and how encouraging migrants to cross the Sonoran Desert not only increases the number of migrant deaths but prevents the recovery of remains. [6] This prevents families from getting closure about the death of loved ones. [6]

Human rights groups like No Más Muertes (No More Deaths) have criticized prevention through deterrence and border patrol for discouraging humanitarian aid at the border. [2] Several members of No Más Muertes have been given tickets or arrested for leaving water in the Sonoran Desert in order to assist migrants. [2]

Documentaries like "Undeterred" https://undeterredfilm.org/ (Eva Lewis, 2019) portray community resistance in the rural border town of Arivaca, Arizona, where since these policies where implemented border residents have been on the front-lines of the humanitarian crisis caused by increased border enforcement build up, such as border patrol interior checkpoints.

Shaping history

According to De León, the U.S. government does not acknowledge the part it plays in the increase of migrant deaths at the southern border; however, over the past 20 years the United States government has been collecting materials left behind by undocumented immigrants. [6]  Therefore, artifacts are no longer available for scholars like to study. [6]  As Paul Farmer pointed out, this is a technique used by authoritative structures to establish a particular historical account of an event. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Border Patrol</span> U.S. federal law enforcement agency

The United States Border Patrol (USBP) is a federal law enforcement agency under the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and is responsible for securing the borders of the United States. According to its web site in 2022, its mission is to "Protect the American people, safeguard our borders, and enhance the nation’s economic prosperity."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Migrant deaths along the Mexico–United States border</span>

The United States border with Mexico is one of the world's "most lethal land borders". Hundreds of migrants die per year as they attempt to cross into the United States from Mexico illegally. The US Border Patrol reported 251 migrant deaths in the fiscal year 2015, which was lower than any year during the period 2000–2014, and reported 247 migrant deaths in fiscal year 2020, lower than any year since 1998. Poverty, gang violence, poor governance, etc. are the main factors as to why migrants cross the US border. US Border Patrol recorded 557 southwest border deaths during fiscal year 2021 and 748 in the first 11 months of fiscal year 2022, the most deaths ever recorded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Wetback</span> 1950s U.S. immigration law enforcement initiative

Operation Wetback was an immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph Swing, the Director of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The program was implemented in June 1954 by U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell. The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century and some who were naturalized citizens who were once native, Operation Wetback was designed to send them to Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minuteman Civil Defense Corps</span>

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps was a volunteer group at one time headed by Chris Simcox and dedicated to preventing illegal crossings of the United States border with Mexico. Arguing that the government was insufficiently concerned with securing the border, they organized several state chapters, with the intention of providing law enforcement agencies with evidence of immigration law violations. The group was one of several that emerged for the proliferation of civilian border patrol groups at the US-Mexico border. Arguably, the emergence of these groups can be linked to the increasing criminalization and securitization of immigration. Simcox stated that the group merely reported incidents to law enforcement, and did not directly confront immigrants. There was a standard operating procedure (SOP) that was to be followed by Minutemen volunteers, with rules including not speaking to, approaching, gesturing towards or having physical contact in any way with any suspected border crossers. According to Anthony Ramirez of the New York Times, the organization "has been criticized as being a right-wing militia".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mexico–United States border</span> International border

The Mexico–United States border is an international border separating Mexico and the United States, extending from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. The border traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from urban areas to deserts. The Mexico–U.S. border is the most frequently crossed border in the world with approximately 350 million documented crossings annually. It is the tenth-longest border between two countries in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Illegal immigration to the United States</span> Immigration to the United States in violation of US law

Foreign nationals (aliens) can violate US immigration laws by entering the United States unlawfully or lawfully entering but then remaining after the expiration of their visas, parole, or temporary protected status. Illegal immigration has been a matter of intense debate in the United States since the 1980s.

No More Deaths is an advocacy group based in Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona, United States. The group's stated goal is to end the series of fatalities of undocumented immigrants crossing the desert regions near the United States-Mexico border. Volunteers for the organization provide food, water, and medical aid to people crossing the US-Mexico border through the Arizona desert and offer humanitarian aid to people in Mexico who have been deported from the US.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Illegal entry</span> Act of entering a country in violation of its laws

Illegal entry is the act of foreign nationals arriving in or crossing the borders into a country in violation of its immigration law. Human smuggling is the practice of aiding people in crossing international borders for financial gain, often in large groups. Human smuggling is associated with human trafficking. A human smuggler will facilitate illegal entry into a country for a fee, but on arrival at their destination, the smuggled person is usually free. Trafficking involves physical force, fraud, or deception to obtain and transport people, usually for enslavement or forced prostitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coyote (person)</span> Migrant smuggler

Colloquially, a coyote is a person who smuggles immigrants across the Mexico–United States border. The word "coyote" is a loanword from Mexican Spanish that usually refers to a species of North American wild dog (Canis latrans).

The Undocumented is a 90-minute documentary film, released in 2013, directed by Marco Williams, which investigates the causes and effects of migrant deaths along the Arizona-Mexico border.

Illegal immigration in Mexico has occurred at various times throughout history, especially in the 1830s and since the 1970s. Although the number of deportations is declining with 61,034 registered cases in 2011, the Mexican government documented over 200,000 illegal border crossings in 2004 and 2005. The largest source of illegal immigrants in Mexico are the impoverished Central American countries of Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and El Salvador and African countries like Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Guinea, Ghana and Nigeria. The largest single group of immigrants in Mexico is from the United States, at 1.5 million, many of whom overstay their visas. Americans are the largest group of immigrants in Mexico. They number 1.5 million, many of them being without legal status since they overstayed their visas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2014 American immigration crisis</span> Surge in immigration along U.S. southern border

The 2014 American immigration crisis was a surge in unaccompanied children and women from the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) seeking entrance to the United States in 2014. According to U.S. law, an unaccompanied alien child refers to a person under 18 years of age, who has no lawful immigration status in the U.S., and who does not have a legal guardian to provide physical custody and care.

Jacumba Valley is a valley in San Diego and Imperial Counties, California. Its head is at 32°37′00″N116°10′07″W Carrizo Creek has its source in Jacumba Valley, 1.2 miles north of the California-Mexico State boundary, at 32°38′09″N116°07′05″W at an elevation of 3,210 feet, on the west side of the divide between Jacumba Valley and the valley of upper Boulder Creek. Carrizo Creek flows west then north northwest through Jacumba Valley to its mouth at the head of Carrizo Gorge. Just south of the Jacumba and In-ko-pah Mountains, the terrain consists of large, flat desert plains and hills of granite boulders. The wider region, including the Jacumba Wilderness, which sits just east of the valley, has been greatly affected by the construction of the US/Mexico border and has become a site of great numbers of migrations along migrant paths.

Border Angels is a San Diego-based 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit charitable organization that is focused on migrant rights, immigration reform, and the prevention of immigrant deaths along the border. Border Angels, along with its more than 2000 volunteers serves San Diego County's immigrant population through various migrant outreach programs such as day laborer outreach and legal assistance, and provides life-saving assistance for migrants by placing bottled water in remote mountain and desert border regions of the San Diego and Imperial counties, California.

Border enforcement is a type of immigration enforcement whereby a country enforces its immigration laws by trying to prevent people from crossing its border or borders illegally. There are multiple methods a country can use to do this, including patrolling its border and building walls along part or all of it. The term is most commonly used in regards to the efforts by the United States government to prevent people from migrating illegally to the U.S. by crossing the Mexico–United States border. Since 2002, the number of United States Border Patrol agents has more than doubled, to a total of 20,273, and federal spending on the Patrol has increased from $1.4 to $3.8 billion over the same time. In addition to the Patrol, agencies responsible for border enforcement in the U.S. include Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

<i>The Land of Open Graves</i> Book by anthropologist Jason De León

The Land of Open Graves is a book by anthropologist Jason De León with photographs by Michael Wells. The book examines the human consequences of United States immigration policy. Using research methods from all four subfields of anthropology, De León sheds light on the lives of the thousands of migrants who cross the US border with Mexico daily in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. The book was published in hardcover and paperback by the University of California Press in 2015 as part of the California Series in Public Anthropology.

The Arizona borderlands are the geographic and cultural region north of the Arizona portion of the US-Mexico border. The area is unique in that it features both an international border and the Tohono O'oham sovereign nation along much of that border. Frequent and persistent topics of interest in the area include the presence of illegal immigration, the confluence of local, state, and national politics surrounding the border, conservation and sustainable living, and the presence of drug traffickers and paramilitary forces in the vicinity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hostile Terrain 94</span> Art installation

Hostile Terrain 94 (HT94) is a participatory art project created and organized by the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP). The exhibition is composed of approximately 3,400 handwritten toe tags that represent migrants who have died trying to cross the Sonoran Desert of Arizona between the mid-1990s and 2021. The tags are geolocated on a large wall map of the Arizona/Mexico border, showing the exact locations where human remains were found. This DIY installation is taking place at over 120 institutions––in the U.S. and abroad––with the intention to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis at America's southern border and to engage with communities around the world in conversations about migration.

Borderland is a limited-run 2014 television documentary series, produced by Australian production company In Films. It was the first original commission for Al Jazeera America's documentary unit, premiering on 13 April 2014. The series followed six Americans as they retraced the fatal journey of three undocumented migrants who died attempting to cross into the United States.

Missing in Brooks County is a 2020 feature-length documentary, directed and filmed by Lisa Molomot and Jeff Bemiss. Its subject is the passage of illegal migrants through Brooks County, Texas, and specifically how thousands die of dehydration and exposure hiking some 35 miles (56 km) across open fields in 100 °F (38 °C) heat, to avoid the Border Patrol internal checkpoint near Falfurrias, Texas. The ground is sandy and taxing to walk in, and lack of landmarks makes it easy for migrants to get lost and go in circles. Brooks County leads the nation in migrant deaths; most bodies are never found, and most of those found are never identified. The county sheriff calls the county "the biggest cemetery in the United States". News stories have called it "migrants' Death Valley."

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 E-mail, Via (1994-07-01). "Border Patrol Strategic Plan 1994 and Beyond: National Strategy". U.S. Border Patrol.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Androff, David K.; Tavassoli, Kyoko Y. (2012). "Deaths in the Desert: The Human Rights Crisis on the U.S.—Mexico Border". Social Work. 57 (2): 165–173. doi:10.1093/sw/sws034. JSTOR   23718921. PMID   23038878 – via JSTOR.
  3. ↑ Whitaker, Julie (2009). "Mexican Deaths in the Arizona Desert: The Culpability of Migrants, Humanitarian Workers, Governments, and Businesses". Journal of Business Ethics. 88: 365–376. doi:10.1007/s10551-009-0283-x. ISSN   0167-4544. JSTOR   27749710. S2CID   154342406.
  4. ↑ León, Jason De; García, Eduardo “Lalo”; Feb 2016, The Undocumented Migration Project / 16 (2016-02-16). "A View From the Train Tracks". SAPIENS. Retrieved 2019-12-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. ↑ Kanno-Youngs, Zolan (2019-06-08). "Death on the Rio Grande: A Look at a Perilous Migrant Route". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 León, Jason De (October 2015). The land of open graves : living and dying on the migrant trail. University of California Press. ISBN   978-0-520-28275-9. OCLC   922765490.
  7. 1 2 3 León, Jason De; García, Eduardo “Lalo”; Feb 2016, The Undocumented Migration Project / 16 (2016-02-16). "A View From the Train Tracks". SAPIENS. Retrieved 2019-12-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. 1 2 3 "Operation Blockade: Bullying Tactic or Border Control Model?". CIS.org. December 1993. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  9. ↑ "Chinese Exclusion Act | Definition, History, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  10. ↑ Ettinger, Patrick W. (2011). Imaginary lines : border enforcement and the origins of undocumented immigration, 1882-1930. University of Texas Press. ISBN   978-0-292-72578-2. OCLC   704526404.
  11. 1 2 3 "Undocumented Border Crosser Remains by Calendar Year". Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner. March 2, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.