Border Death-Trap - Time to Tear Down America's Berlin Wall

The U.S. Border Patrol recently recovered four bodies outside the town of Ocotillo in the scorched desert of California's southern border region. On the same day, the Imperial County coroner removed a corpse from an irrigation canal near Calexico to the east. And over the previous weekend, U.S. authorities found five more bodies in western Arizona. All of the deceased were from Mexico, part of an ever-growing death toll among migrants crossing the U.S. boundary without authorization.

These fatalities helped the United States reach an ignominious milestone during July: 2,000 dead migrants along the southern divide since 1995, soon after Washington began to significantly enhance boundary policing. That's roughly one corpse per border mile, or one per 1.4 days. Just as the deaths of would-be migrants trying to overcome the Berlin Wall led to outrage and calls for the militarized line of control to come down, moral and political consistency requires a similar response to the ever-deadly U.S.-Mexico boundary.

When Washington, D.C., began its "territorial denial" strategy in the mid-1990s, officials predicted that it would discourage many migrants from crossing by pushing them away from border cities and towns into harsh mountain and desert areas where they would rationally decide to forgo the risks and return home. These predictions soon proved false, as the number of fatalities -- largely from exposure to the elements and drowning -- rose dramatically.

Denying any responsibility for the deaths, U.S. officials' typical response has been one of hand wringing, or outrage directed at the "coyotes" -- smugglers whose services are made more necessary by the very boundary build-up championed by these same officials. More proactively, officials promised increased search and rescue efforts.

Yet, June was the deadliest month on record, with 70 migrants perishing, including two girls, 11 and 12. And over the last year, the death toll in proportion to the number of migrant apprehensions -- a rough indicator of the actual migrant flow -- has actually risen.

Such numbers and the human suffering they embody demonstrate there is nothing surprising about the fatalities. They are the predictable outcome of a lethal, predictable charade, one in which Washington provides ever-increasing amounts of boundary enforcement resources in full knowledge that they will do little to diminish unauthorized immigration, but will instead have increasingly deadly consequences.

A report last August from the General Accounting Office found "no clear indication" that unauthorized crossings along the Southwest boundary have declined since 1994. An in-depth study released recently by the Public Policy Institute of California confirms this, while attributing the rise in migrant deaths to enhanced boundary enforcement.

Growing socioeconomic ties and widening inequality between the United States and Mexico (and increasingly beyond) -- combined with the will of migrants to escape poverty and to pursue their basic human right to work, maintain their families and have an adequate standard of living -- make unauthorized migration inevitable.

The Bush administration's proposed increase of $1.2 billion for immigration enforcement will do nothing to change this. To pretend and behave otherwise is to effectively sentence hundreds of migrants to death each year.

For such reasons, America's border policy must change. This does not mean the end of the U.S.-Mexico boundary, but the nature of it. Only by recognizing the inevitability of immigration and welcoming -- rather trying to repel --immigrants can we stop the deaths. At the same time, putting an end to U.S. policies abroad that contribute to political-economic instability and injustice would prove to be far more effective, in addition to more humane in diminishing immigration that is unwanted -- at least officially.

American capital has long had a voracious appetite for highly exploitable labor, thus attracting "illegal" immigrants, whose presence is widely accepted at the highest levels of society. Moreover, Washington has aggressively pushed the liberalization of foreign economies such as Mexico's, a process that has predictably intensified migratory pressures among those displaced in the name of economic efficiency.

U.S. officials are not deliberately killing migrants. But they have helped to drive migrants here, and created and maintained an enforcement apparatus that inevitably results in their deaths -- in numbers far greater than occurred in East Germany. Its time to tear down America's Berlin Wall.

PNS contributor Joseph Nevins (josephnevins@hotmail.com) is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of "Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the 'Illegal Alien' and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary" (Routledge).

These people are CRIMINALS, pure and simple. The second they set foot across the border, they are CRIMINALS. They cut landowers fences,(trespass, destruction of private property), kill livestock (rustling, destruction of private property, theft, malicious mischief) and eat only a small part, maybe 20 lbs. leaving the carcass (up to 1200 lbs.!) to rot in the sun,(cost of one cow about $350.00 for the rancher), break into homes (burglary), threaten landowners (simple assault, assault, aggravated assault), have fired at border guards (attempted capital murder), shot the windows out of border patrol vehicles, (attempted murder, destruction of public property), leave their waste throughout the landowners property that he has to clean up at his cost, (environmental damage),pollute landowners water by disposing of their waste in it (and water is scarce and expensive down there), bring in illegal drugs, and that is just on the border! Remember the wetback who rode the rail system, hopping off to commit murders around the country. One of those murders was about 15 miles from my house! Murdered by an ILLEGAL "immigrant". Didn't he murder about 15 Americans? And now the taxpayers get to support that murderer for the rest of his life! If you don't want criminals stopped that's your decision. I do.

If they were pouring across the border with guns the military would be down there stopping an invasion. Even though they don't, in most cases, have guns, except the drug runners who are WELL ARMED, it is an invasion that is occuring. If they don't respect the immigration laws, they DO NOT respect any other laws. France had immigration laws in 1939, Germany invaded by force of arms. It cost American lives to run Germany out. To repel a foreign invasion MAY take force of arms. Either their governments act to stop the invasion, or we have to.

I used to arrest these people when I was with the PD. They would call and report themselves for a free ride back to Mexico. They would have $1400/$1500 dollars on them. We couldn't confiscate it because we couldn't "prove" it was gotten illegally. They would take a vacation with the family in Mexico for a month or two and be back here again. Work a few months, call themselves in, vacation, and back again. While here they'd live 10-15 in a house, in many cases causing damage to the property because of the number living there. And that was 30 years ago. Now they pour across the border like water down a downspout!

I for one am tired of it.

The other option is we could allow them to overrun us, charge them 50% of any monies they make here illegally (it's illegal if they're here illegally), give them NO benefits (welfare, food stamps, medical aid, etc.). If they decided they wanted citizenship they have to return to their home country and go through the application process from the beginning, LEGALLY.

This issue makes my blood boil, and it was when I responded last about the 11/12 yr. old. I would not fire on a child. However, if it takes force of arms to stop the invasion, I would certainly support it, and if necessary, get involved.

Boonie Rat

MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66

What we need is a compassionate solution to the immigration problem that will prevent deaths. The INS and border patrol are not doing the job so we must privatize their functions. We must follow the lead of Chicago's Major Dailey in the 60's. When he wanted the citizens of his city not to be hurt by riots and looting he issued a warning that all looters and rioters would be shot. There was no looting and rioting and not a single person was hurt.

So the solution is to set a bounty of $1,000 on any illegals in the US. Give a month's warning for them to leave and then let private enterprise take care of the problem. After a few shootings, and after seeing lots of citizens with guns on the border ready to shoot, the immigration problem will be solved.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.