Border Control: Weaponizing Mother Nature

On the July 2, 2012, Jason De León an anthropologist and Director of the Undocumented Migration Project, took his students to a part of the Sonoran Desert. Since 2009, De León’s research has collected artifacts left behind from migrants trying to cross the border into the US, some of which are preserved in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He was familiar enough with the area to anticipate that no artifacts or human remains would be found, choosing instead to show his students what it looks like when evidence of migration disappears. One of his students, who had ascended the area before the rest of the group cried out to him, alerting the team that a body had been found. The body of a woman lay face down, having been dead only a few days. She was undergoing what forensic anthropologists call early decomposition. It shook De León to his core. He says, “As her body turns, I see what is left of her face…The mouth is gnarled purple and black hole that obscures the rest of her features. The skin around the lips is stretched out of shape as though it has been melted…The scene is pastiche of metallic gray and pea green. Whatever beauty and humanity that once existed in her face has been replaced by a stone-colored ghoul stuck in mid-scream. It’s a look you never get away from” (De León, 2015). This woman is one of the estimated 10,000 people since 1994 that have died in their attempt to come to the US. This estimate comes from Border Angels, an immigration rights group. On the other hand, U.S. Customs and Border Protection puts the number at 7,505 people between 1998 and 2018. The Missing Migrants Project by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) of the UN Migration Agency, puts the number at 2,202 people from 2014 to 2020. 

These numbers are the ones that are found at the border, many don’t make it that far. Jason De León's own research demonstrates how the numbers could be higher. During one experiment he laid out 4 pig carcasses (pig and human skin textures are similar) in the boiling Arizona desert, and watched as they vanished within a day. Kate Spradley, a professor of anthropology at Texas State University who runs similar experiments with donated human bodies says, “Vultures can render a body to a skeleton in about five hours” (O'Dell, 2018). Between the extreme weather, tough terrains, the vulture’s feasting on flesh, and their scattering of bones, migrants who die at the border can vanish. Their remains are lost in the 100,000 square miles of sand reported to be the hottest desert in all of Mexico.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) website and social media page are full of daily updates of migrants they encounter who are close to death. In a press release from September 21, 2020, Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark A. Morgan stated: “Smugglers are unscrupulous criminals and will stop at nothing to enrich their pockets, even if it involves locking human beings in trailers intended for animals.” Morgan is referring to how smugglers who are paid $6,000-$12,000 per person often transport migrants in unsafe conditions to avoid detection. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) protects asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants from human smugglers and human traffickers through border enforcement. This is in keeping with international law. The first treaty against human trafficking was The International Agreement for the suppression of the White Slave Traffic in 1904. The current one, The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) was made within the framework of international criminal law in 2000. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime acts as the custodian of this treaty, placing sanctions on countries that don’t comply with policing, border enforcement, and regulations. Border Patrol is following the narrative laid out by the UNTOC’s Trafficking and Smuggling Protocols, which claims to protect migrants and trafficking victims from traffickers or smugglers. Effectively it assumes that violence and deaths of migrants are caused by smugglers. CPB often warns migrants to not try to come to the US because they will likely die, lose their money, and be deported by Border Patrol. In the same September 2020 press release border agents warn: “Migrants are exposed to these dangers by smugglers who know the life-threatening journey will be in vain given increased border enforcement and partnerships with affected governments”. Another agent reiterates, “The message is clear, do not trust human smugglers, and do not endanger your lives and the lives of your loved ones by embarking on the dangerous journey to the United States in vain” (Ruiz, 2020).

The next month, on October 29, 2020, DHS highlighted the Secure Fence Act, which allowed the building of Donald Trump’s long promised border wall. DHS claims that this is effective at eliminating criminals and smugglers. DHS notes the difference between pre-wall and post-wall: “prior to construction of the border wall system it was common to see illegal aliens running across a heavily traveled road, putting themselves and members of the community at risk…Smugglers are now forced to take their groups further west into areas that are less dense with brush and easier for CBP surveillance cameras to detect illicit activity” (DHS, 2020). The message is cohesive, migrants put themselves and the US community in danger by paying for smugglers to navigate their illegal journey. The hope is that with all these deterrences in place, migrants will abandon crossing the border.

Scholar like Mary D. Fan, a Professor of Law at Yale University and former legal officer at the United Nations, and Wayne Cornelius, an academic expert on Mexican migration, have argued for decades against this framework. They point to the history of these policies, and how it proves that these deadly side effects were intentional at the onset. In 1993, Bill Clinton’s administration vowed to crackdown on illegal immigration. His Office of National Drug Control Policy commissioned a study to increase border security from the Sandia National Laboratories (a government sponsored military facility). Their study recommended that CBP focus on preventing illegal entries, focusing on multiple physical barriers, surveillance equipment, and blocking off their safer pathways to cross. Prior to this, immigrants would be apprehended at the border, or within the country. This new strategy focused on preventing migrants from making it that far. This strategy became the backbone of “Prevention through Deterrence” policies throughout the Clinton administration and all subsequent administrations. During this time, a CBP supervisor named Silvestre Reyes had the idea to block off urban areas which migrants would usually cross, to force them into deadlier terrain. Millions of dollars were invested into diverting smugglers and migrants into "more hostile terrain". (Cornelius, 2001) This plan is laid out in a 1994 report titled Border Patrol Strategic Plan 1994 and Beyond. The report predicts that the policy would leave immigrants in “mortal danger”, and goes on to elaborate the need to prevent assimilation: “When urban areas are uncontrolled, they provide illegal entrants an opportunity to assimilate with the population, making it difficult for the Border Patrol to quickly identify and arrest individual illegal entrants” (United States, 1994). This policy would make migrants easier to identify and cut off any possible support from the community since they would be forced to go through more remote, isolated areas. Although pundits often regard growth of smuggling operations, violence, and death at the border as unintended consequences, since 1994 (before Prevention through Deterrence was implemented) the rise in violence and smuggling fees were indicators that the plan was working. The Border Patrol Strategic Plan 1994 and Beyond predicts the success of the plan three times in their report: “fee increase by smugglers, violence will increase as effects of strategy are felt, political pressure to loosen border, potential for more protests against immigration policy” (United States, 1994).

Operation Gatekeeper launched on October 1, 1994  doubling the budget of the immigration service, and doubling border agents. A Chief Patrol Agent for CBP testified before Congress in 2001 on its success: “We have shut down traditional illegal entry routes, forcing alien smugglers to lead illegal crossers to remote and rural regions. Illegal aliens and smugglers are now exposed to longer and more arduous entry…Border Patrol has successfully raised the cost and difficulty of entering the United States illegally” (Fan, 2008). Statements like this point to the dependent nature of the smuggler and migrant relationship, how these policies create a necessity for these relationships, and how these policies intend to hurt both. This puts into question policies or narratives that seek to blame smugglers for migrants’ routes since the intended goal of these policies was to “force” them to behave a certain way. According to Wayne Cornelius, the price before Operation Gatekeeper was $143 for assistance crossing the border, by 1995 the average fee increased to $490, the next year it increased to $700, in the summer of 2000 the fee ranged from $800-$1,300, and by mid-2001 it increased to $1,200-$1,500 per head. Now, the rates can range from $4,000-$16,000 per person. Crossing the border has become deadlier, and smugglers have increased rates to compensate for the risks involved. The demand for their services has also increased since. For migrants who can’t afford to save up and pay the amount outright, some end up in debt bondage working off their debt in the US often with interest. These agreements can come with deadly consequences if they can’t make payments. Some may be forced to live in horrible conditions until their debts are paid off. Most of the stories about “human trafficking” and “modern day slavery” are often about debt bondage.

Historian Patrick Ettinger points out that Prevention Through Deterrence is not innovative, and points to the emergence of this policy in the late 1800s against Chinese immigrants. Following the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, barred immigrants started smuggling themselves through the Mexican border. At the time, the US federal immigration system was in its infancy, as immigration was only declared a federal responsibility in 1875, following an increase in racially diverse immigration. Chinese immigrants were often referred to as “coolies” or the “pig trade” referring to the debt bondage and slave like conditions they were forced to live in. Patrick Ettinger states, “From their earliest work enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Acts, immigration authorities had discovered that the deserts and mountain wilderness could be made effective allies in the fight against undocumented entry.” (Ettinger, 2011) Like today's immigrants living in deplorable conditions, exploited for their labor, without access to rights, and dying at the border became common.

Illustration by Frederic Remington portrays an undocumented Chinese "coolie" dying of thirst in the Mojave Desert. First appeared in the March 1891 issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine with the caption “Dying of Thirst” next to an article by Julian Ralph titled “Chinese leak” detailing immigration of the Chinese from the Canadian and Mexican border.

If debt bondage is an expected result of these policies, then protection of immigrants is unlikely to be the goal behind them. Records and reports from various anti-trafficking initiatives and programs don’t show an emphasis for the plight of immigrants. The criminal justice system places more of an emphasis on protecting US citizens. Perpetrators of trafficking in media and in the data from law enforcement are often configured to be African American, or Hispanics. The US Department of Justice 2011 report on Characteristics of Suspected Human Trafficking Incidents from 2008-2010, show that of the 2,515 human trafficking open investigations, only 389 were confirmed, 85% were sex trafficking cases, 83% of the victims were US citizens. Confirmed sex trafficking suspects were 62% African American, 25% Hispanic. Additionally, the USCIS data on the trafficking visa, a program created for undocumented immigrants to gain a 4-year temporary work visa, is a far cry from the millions of estimated victims.

The visa program often requires victims to prove they were victims of trafficking by starting and paying for a prosecution case against the trafficker. It can carry the risk of deportation if the person is denied since the victim would be admitting to a criminal activity – being in the sex industry, crossing illegally, or working illegally. To win their case, they would have to prove they were forced to commit a crime, unless they were underaged (similar to the DACA program). Within 12 years, from 2008 to March of 2020, the total applications made for a trafficking visa was 11,415, of those 7229 were approved, 2418 were denied outright, the rest were put on pending status, often because prosecution cases are ongoing, and more evidence is needed. The trafficking visa has a yearly cap of 5,000 per year, and never meets that cap. Despite the reported millions of victims every year, the US generally doesn’t find many victims to be truly “deserving” or innocent. This speaks volumes about the bias within the criminal justice system, police, government, and anti-trafficking organizations. Despite the increase in funding for these efforts, violence has only increased at the border, creating widespread debt bondage, and low prosecution rates of trafficking cases. Patrick Ettinger says that during the late 1800s, immigration authorities were aware that eliminating the problem of illegal immigration was impossible, and the real goal was to make it as difficult as possible. The result has been an expanding immigration control agency, whose job would continue to grow indefinitely.

De León, Jason, and Michael Wells. The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. 1st ed., University of California Press, 2015. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctv1xxvch. 

O'Dell, Rob. What Dead Pigs Can Teach Us about Missing Bodies in the Arizona Desert. 5 July 2018, www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/border-issues/2018/07/05/what-dead-pigs-teach-us-missing-migrants-arizona-desert/736627002/.

-, Staff Report, et al. Border Patrol Says Cases of Smuggling Immigrants in Trailers Increasing. 24 Sept. 2020, www.brownsvilleherald.com/2020/09/24/border-patrol-says-cases-smuggling-immigrants-trailers-increasing/.

Ruiz, Jaime. “Despite COVID-19 Risks, Cases of Migrants Crammed in Tractor-Trailers Dangerously Increase.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 2020, www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/despite-covid-19-risks-cases-migrants-crammed-tractor-trailers.

(DHS), The Department of Homeland Security. “The Border Wall System Is Deployed, Effective, and Disrupting Criminals and Smugglers.” Department of Homeland Security, 30 Oct. 2020, www.dhs.gov/news/2020/10/29/border-wall-system-deployed-effective-and-disrupting-criminals-and-smugglers.

Cornelius, Wayne A. “Death at the Border: Efficacy and ‘Unintended’ Consequences of US Immigration Control Policy.” Population & Development Review, vol. 27, no. 4, Dec. 2001, pp. 661–685. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2001.00661.x.

United States, Congress, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Doris Meissner. Border Patrol Strategic Plan 1994 and Beyond, 1994, pp. 1–19.

Fan, Mary D. “When Deterrence and Death Mitigation Fall Short: Fantasy and Fetishes as Gap-Fillers in Border Regulation.” Law & Society Review, vol. 42, no. 4, Dec. 2008, pp. 701–734. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1540-5893.2008.00356.x.

Ettinger, Patrick W. Imaginary Lines: Border Enforcement and the Origins of Undocumented Immigration, 1882-1930. University of Texas Press, 2011.