U.S. wall kills Mexican migrants
By Gloria La
Riva
The 13 Mexican immigrants--who perished in late May trying
to cross the brutal Arizona desert--are direct casualties of
the U.S. government's militarization of the U.S.-Mexico
border that began aggressively in 1994.
Since the terrible discovery of the 13 men and boys who
lost their lives in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife
Refuge in southern Arizona, three more people have died of
exposure in separate incidents.
Since the Clinton administration inaugurated Phase I of
"Operation Gatekeeper" on Oct. 1, 1994, the vast majority of
Mexicans who cross the border have been forced to travel deep
into very remote, unpopulated desert or mountainous areas in
the Southwest to avoid detection by the U.S. Border Patrol.
Before, most of the immigration routes were near urban areas
where travel was safer. Phase I involved virtually sealing
the crossing areas along the Imperial Beach area of southern
California.
The effects of the anti-immigrant operation are shocking.
There has been a tenfold increase in the deaths of migrants
in Arizona since 1994, a tenfold increase in Texas, and a
fivefold rise in California.
Claudia Smith, attorney for California Rural Legal
Assistance Foundation, told Workers World, "The deaths we see
are almost exclusively since Operation Gatekeeper." She
explained that the rate of death is rising yearly. In the
year 2000 in California, 140 people died crossing into the
U.S., in this first five months alone, 130 have died at the
state's border.
A total of 639 people have died along the U.S.-Mexico
border since Operation Gatekeeper began.
Racist frenzy whipped up by the anti-immigration policies
of California Gov. Pete Wilson in the 1990s helped galvanize
xenophobic attitudes of upper-middle-class populations in the
San Diego area. This contributed to a climate that supported
a military-type enforcement at the border.
Proposition 187
At that time a campaign promoting the notorious California
Proposition 187 was in full swing. That proposition, which
eventually passed, would deny undocumented immigrants
education for their children or health care for their
families.
Mass opposition from Latinos and supporters later helped
defeat the proposition in court before it could be
enforced.
Wilson's gubernatorial race in 1994 used blatantly racist
political advertisements, showing Mexicans crossing the
border. The ads appealed to backward values among the
majority-white voters, falsely claiming that immigrants were
ruining "their" economy.
In the same year Bill Clinton used his presidential powers
to sign a repressive anti-immigration bill into law. Part of
this law denied legal permanent residents the right to
federal assistance of any kind, even food stamps or federal
subsidized housing.
That fall, with funding from the federal government,
Clinton approved construction of a $50 million, 14-mile
triple wall, starting at the Pacific Ocean and extending
eastward along the border. Roughly one-quarter of all
immigration had taken place here before the first part of
Operation Gatekeeper.
Clinton also added 1,000 more Border Patrol agents. "La
Migra," as the force is known in the Latino community,
instills fear for the racist abuse those cops inflict on
immigrants, and the knowledge that if you are caught,
detention and deportation are certain.
Migration did not slow down, especially with the Mexican
economy showing the effects of the economically disastrous
trade accord called the North America Free Trade Agreement.
With the loss of millions of Mexican jobs, and elimination of
agricultural subsidies to peasant farmers, many Mexican
workers had no alternative but to go north.
To avoid being caught and sent back, they have now been
forced deep into areas less guarded by the Border
Patrol--areas like the Cabeza Prieta forest in Arizona, where
the 13 Mexicans died of thirst and exposure.
There they attempt their crossing through miles and miles
of unpopulated, deadly territory. Although many know of the
dangers, economic devastation in their home states leaves
these workers no other choice but to take a risk.
Compounding the migrants' crisis is their victimization by
"coyotes"--smugglers who charge unscrupulous amounts of money
to bring them into the United States. The workers who died
last week had been abandoned by smugglers in the desert.
CRLA's Smith said, "Smuggling has become a multi-million
dollar industry. With Operation Gatekeeper, you can't cross
the border without a smuggler. It is a lucrative business
carried out in a heartless way."
U.S. policy responsible
But U.S. policy is responsible for their deaths. Border
Patrol forces have been boosted from under 1,000 in 1993 to
almost 2,500 today.
Using infrared scopes, helicopters and other
night-surveillance equipment, they chase down immigrants,
forcing them into places like the desert.
For these migrants, living in the United States is no
dream. It is more like a nightmare. The work they're hired
for is very difficult, with little pay, and sometimes they
are abused and paid nothing.
On May 26 during a March Against Racism in San Jose,
Calif., Roberto, a Mexican man marching along with the group,
told Workers World he had seen a leaflet for the march at the
Salvation Army, where he went looking for work.
Roberto is from the Mexican state of Michoacan. Though
this state is very rich agriculturally, tens of thousands of
men have been forced to come to the United States for work in
recent years, leaving Michoacan almost deserted.
Roberto was sitting on a sidewalk curb in San Jose the day
before, because he had been looking for work all day and was
tired. A police officer approached him and began screaming at
him. "His face trembling with anger at me," said Roberto.
Then the police made him pick up all the garbage and trash
near that block.
Roberto would not suffer that racist abuse at home. But he
keeps coming back so his family won't starve.
47 killed in Tecate Mountains
In 1996, Phase II of Operation Gatekeeper
("Operación Guardián" in Spanish) was
implemented. With this step, Washington put intense border
patrol surveillance for 66 more miles in place, from the wall
eastward, appropriating military equipment and more
helicopters.
The 6,000-foot-high Tecate mountains that migrants were
forced to cross because of Phase II caused a sharp spike in
mortality.
That winter, 16 Mexican workers died. This year alone,
according to California Rural Legal Assistance, 47 people
have died in the Tecate Mountains.
Phase III saw the expansion of Operation Gatekeeper into
the Imperial Valley of California. The valley, with
temperatures of over 100 degrees, is exceedingly
dangerous.
While walls and military enforcement are used to keep
Mexican and other Latino immigrants from crossing the border,
no such restriction exists for U.S. corporations and their
growing capital investments in Mexico.
With NAFTA, U.S. corporations have declared Mexico open
for the fullest exploitation possible. As formerly communal
lands are consolidated into monopoly holdings, and
jobs--industrial and agricultural--are lost by millions in
Mexico, the workers are forced to sell their labor in the
United States.
Stepping up the fight for rights
From Tucson to Yuma in Arizona, from San Diego to San Jose
in California, and from Columbus to Albuquerque in New
Mexico, immigrant-rights and other humanitarian organizations
are escalating their actions against U.S. policy that is
putting immigrants' lives in danger every day.
These organizers know the government and companies reek of
hypocrisy, and that the labor of these workers is very
valuable to them because of the higher rate of profit they
extract from immigrants.
The time is long past for immigrants' full rights to be
granted, the same rights as citizens. Only this way can the
super-exploitation of immigrant workers be stopped.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS
:: SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page