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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the June 7, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
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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 1994.4.
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 ("Operaci�n
Guardi�n" 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.
- END -
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