Deaths | Strategy | Apprehensions | Human Rights Abuses

Since late 1994, the California part of the U.S.-Mexico border has been a testing ground for Operation Gatekeeper, a strategy aimed at blocking traditional border crossing routes. More than a billion dollars has been spent on Gatekeeper, but the new strategy has not prevented illegal entries. It has simply shifted them to the mountains and deserts east of San Diego. Meanwhile, migrant deaths have increased by 500%.  Nevertheless, the U.S. Border Patrol extended Gatekeeper into Yuma, Arizona and has exported the new strategy to other parts of the Southwest border. 

Last year, there was at least one migrant death a day along the entire border.(1)  The death toll far surpassed 1999's.  The Mexican consulates in San Diego and Calexico, California reported 140 migrant deaths from January through December of last year -- 27 more than the year before.  That was the trend border-wide.  According to the Mexican Foreign Relations Office, 491 Mexicans died while crossing the border illegally, as compared to 356 in 1999.  Even the Border Patrol's own figures for fiscal year 2000 show that, from San Diego to Brownsville, migrant deaths jumped by 60%.(2)   The El Centro sector,  which covers California's Imperial desert, is where most of the deaths are occurring.(3)

Photograph: Elsa Medina

I.N.S. Commissioner Doris Meissner was quoted in September of last year as saying that it would take five more years to assert "a reasonable level of control" at the 2,000-mile border.⁽⁴⁾  If you assume that the same migrant flow will continue through the same dangerous areas, there will be at least 2,000 more deaths in the next five years.  A baseline of 500 migrant deaths a year seems a pretty safe bet.  Among other things, U.S. economists predict a continuing surge in the nation's immigrant labor force, as a result of a still relatively robust economy and low unemployment rate.⁽⁵⁾

Deaths:

Border-related deaths typically happen one at a time and have generated little attention. Until 1999, the Border Patrol did not systematically record migrant deaths. Mexican consulate figures show that since Gatekeeper began six years ago, at least  625  people have died during illegal border crossings along the 140 miles from San Diego, California to Yuma, Arizona. They were mainly men in their 20's. More than 300 of them died from heat stress or hypothermia in the mountains and deserts. Almost 200 have drowned in the strong currents of border canals and rivers, trying to bypass the worst of the desert. Most of the rest died in various types of accidents. These numbers are conservative.  The Border Patrol itself says that no one knows how many bodies lie undiscovered. 

The following is a year-by-year breakdown of the Gatekeeper deaths.  

The San Diego and El Centro sectors encompass three of the four places considered by the Border Patrol as "the most hazardous areas" on the Southwest border. ⁽⁶⁾  They are East San Diego County, the Imperial desert and the All American Canal. ⁽⁷⁾  The fourth such place is the Yuma desert. By comparison to California,  the Mexican Foreign Relations Office says that  the number of migrant deaths at the Texas border were: 21 in 1996; 34 in 1997; 170 in 1998; 201 in 1999; and 269 last year. ⁽⁸⁾  The migrant deaths at the Arizona border were: 7 in 1996; 26 in 1997; 12 in 1998;  44 in 1999; and 90 last year.  During the first quarter of calendar year 2001, the Mexican government counted 61 more deaths, broken down geographically as follows:  24 in California, 7 in Arizona, 30 in Texas.

The Border Patrol belatedly launched a search-and-rescue operation in June, 1998. But almost 375 migrants have died on the San Diego-to-Yuma stretch since then -- over half of the six-year Gatekeeper death toll.  In the El Centro sector, where 80% of the deaths on the California border have occurred, the ratio of deaths to rescues for FY 2000 was 1:3. ⁽⁹⁾   Increasingly, migrants have been trying to cross at less patrolled spots on the Southwest border.  Despite regular pronouncements from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service about redoubling its so-called border safety efforts, migrant deaths are rising steeply, border-wide.

Strategy | Apprehensions | Human Rights Abuses

Strategy:

The number of Border Patrol agents assigned to the Southwest border has more than doubled since 1994, to 8,500 today. A quarter are assigned to the 66-mile San Diego sector, alone. And the westernmost 14 miles are where most of the agents are concentrated. It is by far the most heavily-fortified spot on the U.S.-Mexico dividing line. Before Gatekeeper, this coastal corridor was popular with migrants because of its relative safety and proximity to highways, and used to account for 25% of the nationwide apprehensions. Over the past six years, however, Gatekeeper has pushed migrants into ever more difficult terrains and extreme climates to the east of San Diego. The low visibility of illegal border crossers there was been a political windfall for the Clinton Administration.

New and reinforced fencing has also played a substantial role in re-routing migrants. The San Diego sector has 72% of the border fencing erected on the 2,000 miles from San Diego to Brownsville, as well as 54% of the border illumination. Before Gatekeeper, there were 19 miles of fencing in the San Diego sector; currently, there are 52 miles of primary and secondary fencing. Triple fences now run from the Pacific Ocean to the base of the Otay Mountains -- a heavily urbanized area. Various East San Diego County communities along the border also have stretches of fence. The El Centro sector, which covers 72 miles of the border and is sparsely populated on the U.S. side, has only seven miles of fencing -- all between the contiguous border cities of Calexico and Mexicali. As explained by the Urban Institute's director of immigration studies, the point of the new strategy was to reduce the migrant foot traffic through border cities. (10)  The intention was not to seal the border — something the Gatekeeper plan deemed "unrealistic." (11)

 

Photograph: Alfonso Caraveo Castro

Gatekeeper was developed with help from the U.S. Department of Defense's Center for Low Intensity Conflicts. The strategic plan recognizes that "illegal entrants crossing through remote, uninhabited expanses...can find themselves in mortal danger" and assumed that the "influx will adjust to Border Patrol changing tactics." (12)  Gatekeeper has been implemented in three phases. Each raised the risks of migrants dying. The objective of Phase I, launched in October, 1994, was to seal the westernmost 14 miles of the border. As a result, migrants began using more desolate and dangerous routes (mainly the Otay Mountains), and began dying of exposure and exertion. In a report on Gatekeeper by the U.S. Justice Department's Inspector General, the Otay Mountains are described as being "extremely rugged, and includ[ing] steep, often precipitous, canyon walls and hills reaching 4,000 feet."(13)

Phase II began in the spring of 1996. Gatekeeper was extended to the entire San Diego sector. This effort to reroute the migrant foot traffic was stepped up in response to an outcry by East San Diego County residents about the massive illegal border crossings which had materialized there. As the next step in this phase, the migrants were, in the words of Alan Bersin, the Clinton Administration's border czar, "forced to enter into a much more inhospitable terrain," i.e., the Tecate Mountains. The peaks rise over 6,000 feet and the snow can fall at altitudes as low as 800 feet. From mid-October to mid-April, there is a greater than 50% probability of below-freezing temperatures. The winter after Phase II was introduced, 16 migrants froze to death in just one month.

Phase III began in fall, 1997. As the Immigration Commissioner explained, "the next real step in moving east gets you into the desert and [like the mountains, it is] very formidable territory."⁽¹⁴⁾  The shortest route that migrants hike in the Imperial desert is ten miles. Of course, migrants going the desert route will have already been hiking through the Baja California side of the desert when they arrive at the border. In the summer of 1997, a total of 27 migrants died of dehydration.  The figure last year was 68.  Now that Gatekeeper has been extended to Arizona, the desert deaths have soared there, too.  The effects are, of course, also being felt in Texas.  On the eve of a presidential summit In Guanajuato this February, the University of Houston's Center for Immigration Research said its researchers had found a "clear correlation and pattern" between the new enforcement strategy and the ever-mounting death toll at the border. 

Notwithstanding, the Bush Administration did not heed a recommendation by the Carnegie Endowment that the U.S. government "freeze" the building of additional fences, etc., with an eye towards "recasting the U.S.-Mexico migration relationship."⁽¹⁵⁾  Instead of reviewing the existing policy, President Bush proposed an additional $100 million for "border management."  Up to now, Operations Gatekeeper, Safeguard and Rio Grande are estimated to have cost between six to nine billion dollars.⁽¹⁶⁾   

Deaths | Apprehensions | Human Rights Abuses

Apprehensions:

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service touted the Gatekeeper idea -- dubbed "prevention through deterrence" -- by predicting a big fall in the apprehension figures along the entire Southwest border at the end of five years. Supposedly, the risk of apprehension would be raised high enough to serve as a real deterrent. But apprehension figures from the Border Patrol confirm that the added dangers have not slowed the migrant foot traffic.  And the General Accounting Office has concluded repeatedly that there is no reliable data to indicate that Gatekeeper or its counterparts in Arizona and Texas have deterred illegal crossings.⁽¹⁷⁾

Between fiscal years 1994 and 2000, the number of apprehensions in the Border Patrol's San Diego and El Centro sectors, combined, dropped by 20%.  While the apprehensions have plummeted in the San Diego sector, they are at an all-time high in the El Centro sector. ⁽¹⁸⁾  The apprehensions have also risen dramatically in Arizona and Texas -- 351% and 55%, respectively, since FY 94. The upshot is that from October, 1994 to September, 2000 there were 88,001 fewer apprehensions at the California border, 564,409 more at the Arizona border, and 188,170 more at the Texas border. ⁽¹⁹⁾  All told, apprehensions at the Southwest border climbed by 68% between fiscal years 1994 and 2000 -- from 979,101 to 1,643,679.⁽²⁰⁾   The Immigration & Naturalization Service's statistics division was right last summer when it projected that the FY 00 total might exceed a record of 1,615,844 apprehension set in FY86.⁽²¹⁾  Furthermore, experts say that increased use of smugglers may actually have driven down the probability of apprehension -- from 30% to 20%. In the face of all these figures, the San Diego Union-Tribune (until the last couple of years a staunch Gatekeeper defender) admitted in an editorial that the new approach to border enforcement has "merely shifted the problem elsewhere."⁽²²⁾   There has been a dip in the apprehensions during the first half of FY 01, but the Border Patrol itself has cautioned against reading a turnaround into those figures.⁽²³⁾

Meanwhile, the Immigration and Naturalization Service efforts to counteract the employer magnet have been "modest," to cite an understatement in a General Accounting Office report released in April, 1999.⁽²⁴⁾  In fact, the agency devotes only 2% of its enforcement man-hours to enforcing immigration laws at the worksite.⁽²⁵⁾  Not surprisingly, only a half-dozen employers of undocumented workers have been prosecuted in California's border counties (San Diego and Imperial) during Gatekeeper's lifetime.

Deaths | Strategy | Human Rights Abuses

Human Rights Abuses:

In a petition filed year before last with the Organization of American States, the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties (ACLU) and the Oceanside-based California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (CRLAF) have charged that the U.S. government has flagrantly abused its right to control the border by resorting to a strategy which is designed to maximize the physical risks. They argue that Gatekeeper cannot be reconciled with the obligation of a member-state to protect life, be it an undocumented person's or a citizen's. That obligation is memorialized in Article 1 of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. In their petition, the groups ask "why not revert to the pre-Gatekeeper strategy," pointing out that it was no less effective overall than the new strategy, and that relatively few border-related deaths occurred before 1995. A hearing on the petition is pending. In another case before the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights, the U.S. has acknowledged limits on its right to control entry into its territory, saying that a government could "take effective and reasonable steps to prevent unlawful entries." The ACLU and CRLAF assert that the new strategy is neither, calling it perverse and counterproductive.

The U.S. is also bound to protect life as a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, specifically Article 6. Accordingly, the ACLU and CRLAF have appealed to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, who was briefed on the ongoing tragedy when she visited Tijuana in November 1999, as part of a fact-finding visit to Mexico. She called the then-456 deaths "shocking," and said that the border stop had given her a sense of migrants being diverted from their normal crossing places "at a risk to their lives."⁽²⁶⁾  The High Commissioner also said that she planned to take up the deaths with the U.S. government. The newly-appointed U.N. Special Rapporteur for migrant issues is expected to conduct a more extensive investigation. The Mexican government issued an official invitation to the Special Rapporteur last May and the U.S. State Department was prevailed upon to follow suit, but no time has been set for the visit.⁽²⁷⁾

Recently, Amnesty International-U.S.A. overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning Gatekeeper for forcing migrants to attempt border crossings in areas which put them in mortal danger. The resolution says that Amnesty International "does not take issue with the sovereign right of the U.S. to police its borders, but insists that it do so in a manner which complies with international human rights obligations."

Groups like Global Exchange have also taken up the border deaths cause,  making it the focus of a protest at the 2000 Democratic convention.  That party's plank on immigration did recognize that the current border control efforts had "led to an alarming number of migrant deaths on the border" and had not substantially reduced illegal border crossings.⁽²⁸⁾   Ostensibly, Gatekeeper and its counterparts in Arizona and Texas are part-and-parcel of immigration policies and practices which the Democrats said they were "committed to reexamining."⁽²⁹⁾

Gatekeeper has not been just a federal operation. California also invested personnel and resources in Gatekeeper -- a legacy of Governor Pete Wilson.  Starting in 1995, the California National Guard deployed a 33-member "immigration support team" at the border.  The stated purpose was to contribute to a strategy that "channels [migrants] into the mountains and desert."⁽³⁰⁾  During a border governors conference held in Tijuana last year, Governor Gray Davis was asked by migrant advocates to reconsider state support for a border control effort which they say is both deadly and ineffective. Notwithstanding, the new governor proposed another $1.5 million appropriation for Gatekeeper in his 2001 budget.  The California Legislature, however, eliminated the funding and the Guard withdrawal began on July 1st of last year, the day after the state budget was signed.

Deaths | Strategy | Apprehensions

1. The actual figure is 1.5, counting only Mexicans.  The number of Central and South Americans who died at the border is unknown.
2. These deaths went from 231 in FY 99 to 369 in FY 00.  Forty-one percent died from exposure in FY 00 -- up from 33 % in FY 99.  (Caveat:  Neither FY 99 nor  FY 00 figures  include migrants who died on the Mexican side of the mountains, deserts, canals and rivers which straddle the Southwest border.  The Mexican Foreign Relations Office reported 23 such  deaths in calendar year 1999 and 52 last year.)
3. FY 00 figures for the nine sectors on the Southwest border show that 20% of the migrants died in the 80-mile long El Centro sector.
4. See "I.N.S. Chief Targets Risky Rural Crossing,"  Los Angeles Times, 9/7/00.
5. See, e.g., "Foreign Workers at the Highest Level in Seven Decades," New York Times, 9/4/00.  
6. INS Fact Sheet, 7/26/00.
7. This waterway parallels the border for 44 miles. It is 21 feet deep and nearly as wide as a football field.
8. The sudden rise in 1998 is attributable in part to the fact that it was the first year the Mexican consulates in Texas decided to include John Does  (i.e., unidentified persons who died during illegal border crossings) in the migrant body count.
9. El Centro sector Press Release, 10/7/99.  (Caveat:  Border Patrol headquarters gave a ratio of 1:3.1).   Border-wide, the death to rescue  ratio was 1:4.5 in FY 99 and 1:6.7 in FY 00.   
10. "More Agents, Immigrants Travel Dangerous Terrain," Austin-American Statesman, 11/28/99.  See also INS Overview, 9/10/99.  
11. "U.S. Border Patrol Strategic Plan for 1994 & Beyond," approved 8/4/94.
12. Ibid.
13. "Operation Gatekeeper Report," 7/9/98.
14. "Q's and A's," an interview with Commissioner Meissner, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7/21/96.
15. This recommendation was part of a report released on 2/14/01 by a binational panel whose U.S. chairs are Thomas "Mack" McLarty, former Clinton chief of staff,  and Catholic Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio.  The Mexico chair is Andres Rozental, former deputy foreign minister. 
16. See "Arrests up since 1994 crackdown at border: county effort fails to deter illegal flow," 2/20/01, San Diego Union-Tribune.  The article explains the big range by saying that the I.N.S. has no specific breakdown for the costs.
17. See, e.g., "Illegal Immigration:  Status of Southwest Border Strategy Implementation," 5/19/99.
18. In FY 00 151,678 apprehensions reported in the San Diego sector and 238,127 in the El Centro sector.  The FY 94 figures were as follows:  450,152 in the San Diego sector and 27,654 in the El Centro sector.
19. This jump cannot be explained away by saying that the Border Patrol is apprehending the same people more times. There is only anecdotal evidence from the Border Patrol to back up such assertion because the electronic fingerprinting and computer-stored photograph system for detecting those who are apprehended repeatedly is plagued with glitches.
20. The most dramatic rises were in the Yuma and Tucson Border Patrol sectors, where the apprehension during FY 00 were 16% and 31% higher, respectively, than during  FY 99.  Not withstanding, the Border Patrol still talks about "elevating the risk of apprehension to a level so high that prospective illegal entrants consider it futile to enter the U.S. illegally. "  See testimony of Associate INS Commissioner Michael Pearson before the U.S. House of Representatives, 2/16/00.
21. That was the year that the Immigration Report and Control Act was enacted and expectations were raised throughout Mexico about legalization possibilities.
22. See, e.g.,  "Binational Study on Migration," released in 1997.  It was authorized by the U.S. and Mexican governments and prepared by a binational team of scholars.
23.  See "Arrests Up Since 1994 Crackdown at Border:  County effort fails to deter illegal flow,"  San Diego Union Tribune, 2/10/01.
24. "A Losing Battle: Border Patrol Scores Tactical Gains, Strategic Losses," San Diego Union-Tribune, 11/5/99.
25. "Illegal Aliens: Significant Obstacles Exist to Reducing Unauthorized Alien Employment," 4/2/99.
26. As Associate Immigration Commissioner Robert Bach, one of the architects of Gatekeeper, explained in a 3/9/00 New York Times article entitled  "I.N.S.   Looks the Other Way on Illegal Immigrant Labor," once undocumented workers manage to get to the U.S., they are at little risk of deportation:  "It is just the market at work, drawing people to jobs, and the I.N.S.  has chosen to concentrate its [interior activity] on aliens who are a danger to the community."
27. "U.S. Policy on Mexico Border Irks Human Rights Chief," San Diego Union-Tribune, 11/28/99.
28. The invitation encompasses both the southern and northern borders of Mexico.  See "The Crisis at the Northern Border Worries the U.N. Rapporteur."  The La  Jornada article involved is summarized on the web site of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs (www.sre.gob.mx/communicados/prensahoy/2000/vc190500.htm).
29. See www.dems2000.com/AboutTheConvention/03c-progress.html, specifically the "Building One America" section.
30. Testimony of Deputy-Commander Edmund Zysk before the U.S. House of Representatives, 3/10/95.

PREPARED BY CALIFORNIA RURAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE FOUNDATION                                                                April 30,  2001