Symbolic Politics and U.S. Border Enforcement

Last week, Secretary Michael Chertoff testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, hailing his Department's efforts in securing the "homeland" by essentially militarizing and building a 335-mile barricade along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Many of the declared achievements that Chertoff noted are associated with Operation Jump Start, a joint program by the Border Patrol and Department of Defense that deployed 6,000 National Guard troops to assist with surveillance operations and fence construction. Shortly after the two-year anniversary of its inception, Operation Jump Start is coming to an end. Meanwhile, its "raging success" tenuously dangles on Chertoff's misleading "metrics of success."

In his testimony, Chertoff reported a 20 percent decline in apprehensions along the southern border for Fiscal Year 2007. Yet if the persistence of undocumented immigration is any indicator, Jump Start is anything but a success.

According to the findings of a research team led by Dr. Wayne Cornelius, Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California-San Diego, fewer than half of undocumented immigrants who come to the border are apprehended even once by the Border Patrol. The research, which coincided with Operation Jump Start, found that the vast majority of those attempting to cross the border -- between 92 and 98 percent -- eventually get through.

Border experts have also pointed out that much of Chertoff's proclaimed victory can be explained by smugglers charging more for their increasingly creative services. From 1995 to 2005-2007 the average coyote fee rose from $978 to $2,124 -- and for most undocumented immigrants, hiring a coyote essentially guarantees success.

When citing the decrease in both apprehensions at the border and remittances sent by workers in the United States to family members in Mexico, Chertoff also failed to consider the fact that undocumented immigration naturally decreases when the U.S. economy is in recession. Cornelius' report shows that undocumented migration clearly responds to changing U.S. economic conditions, with significant decreases during economic downturns such as the one we are in now. A recent report released by the Pew Hispanic Center showed that during the first quarter of 2008, the Hispanic jobless rate climbed to 6.5%, with over 220,000 Hispanics losing construction jobs -- a sector which employs many undocumented immigrants.

Even though the $1.4 million Operation Jump Start program is coming to an end, Chertoff's testimony affirmed that the spirit of its "symbolic politics" will live on. Chertoff reiterated his commitment to having in place a total of 670 miles of border fencing by the end of 2008. Chertoff also seeks to further increase the number of Border Patrol agents to 18,000 -- the largest expansion of the Border Patrol in its history.

Cornelius and his fellow researchers conclude that stopping undocumented immigration will involve more than simply throwing more money and manpower into an enforcement-only strategy that has failed for decades. In his testimony, Chertoff proclaims: "There can be no homeland security without border security." Yet, there can be no border security, and therefore no homeland security, without a rational, fair, and practical immigration system that restores the rule of law through realistic regulation.

Comments

[joebiz]

Immigration is a historical process and cannot be stopped. Like most things in the US, social issues that affect the US, (drug war, terrorism, etc) immigration is essentially "managed," not solved. Immigration from Latin America, particularly Mexico, has a uniqueness that is not found in any other country.

These elements are present: a) huge economic and political disparity between a developing country and a super power; b) geographic proximity (in fact half of the continental US was Mexican territory); c) historic events that mirror economic policies (when the US economy is bad, immigration falls and vice versa) d) a symbiotic relationship for where macro or supra national issues play a more important role than states rights or "democratic" personal people issues. This point is where the majority of decisions are made. Mexico benefits from repatriations of billions of dollars from illehal immigrants and the US from cheap wage labor.

A wall will not keep out immigrants. If oceans don't keep Chinese or Vietnamese out of the US, a wall will not keep out Latin Americans. Custom agents are paid off, coyotes can guide across the border, documents forged.

As for the greatest migration as discussed above, it was actually the European immigration

[outnow]

I have traveled extensively in Mexico during the previous fifty years until several years ago. I have also traveled in Central America. I have very little desire to visit these countries in the wake of the devastation caused by the "war on drugs" and other misguided foreign policy blunders. It is now the intention of our government to militarize Mexico. Our own border policies are disaster. NAFTA has attracted millions of workers to the border while corporate farming has undermined their ability to return to subsistence farming. When the NAFTA jobs were shifted to China, the great crossing began. We are witnessing the largest migration in world history of the most disadvantaged peoples in Mexico who go northward out of sheer desperation.

The population will eventually need socialistic solutions as the invisible hand of the free market seems to have favored drug dealers above most others. I regret the destruction of our neighbor to the south but it seems so hopeless. The Salinas presidency was machinated out of Wall Street with the collapse of the peso and other problems. A huge wall is not going to stop the migration. Our policies failed beginning with Raygun's looking the other way to benefit his land-owning friends who wanted cheap labor. It's always the same thing somehow.

[RobinSeattle]

What are you talking about? Are you saying that the Border Patrol and the National Guard Troops that are helping them are operating illegally? More manpower as well as technology is indeed part of the answer, as is the wall.

Moreover, why should we make any immigration concessions just because Mexico can't support its own people? And at what point are you willing to cut the spigot of immigrants off? This country already has 300 million people in it. That is way too many to begin with and the strain on our infrastructure, including schools, hospital emergency rooms, and the prison system can be readily seen.

What we need is a five year immigration moratorium and mass roundups of illegals (of any national origin, including Canada and China) so that we can create a workable border defense system and orderly and efficient immigration process. We aren't going to get either of those things with this ongoing ad hoc invasion that is occurring.