An 8-Point Plan to Repair the US-Mexico Border

Huffington Post: Ten years ago, in 2005, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security introduced its Secure Border Initiative (SBI). Today, the Mexico-U.S. wall is a fact of everyday life for millions of people who live in its shadow.

Disagreements persist about how effective the border fortifications have been, but two outcomes are certain: the SBI intervention has massively disrupted community, commerce, and environment along the border zone; and created a bloated 'border industrial complex,' consisting of surveillance infrastructures and enforcement personnel that intervene in the lives of U.S. citizens even though they are intended to target undocumented migrants, smugglers, and terrorists. Read more.

South Texas Opposes Wall on Border with Mexico

Latin American Herald Tribune: Though some mayors in the border region of the Rio Grande Valley have lined up with conservatives, none wants to hear anything about the wall that Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump wants to build – they prefer greater cooperation with Mexico instead.

When Trump made his appearance at the Mexican border a month ago, the mayor of Mission, Texas, was categorical: “Leave us alone,” Beto Salinas said. “Go back to New York.” Read more. 

Child migrant crisis endures on Mexico's south border

AFP: His face lit up every time he mentioned his destination -- the United States -- but like many Central American children, Juan's dream ended abruptly when Mexican officers caught him riding a freight train.

The willowy 16-year-old boy's story is the same as that of thousands of minors from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala who are still crossing Mexico's southern border alone despite a crackdown on illegal migration. Read more. 

Armed Border Militia Apprehends Bat-Counting Scientists

Note: Heavily armed militia in Arizona and Texas are threatening people. Here near Sonoita, Arizona scientific researchers were held at gunpoint. Local officials say they don't appreciate the presence of the armed groups. Then why don't they do something? Is this really legal or desirable behavior? You know that if these groups were Latino citizens they'd be behind bars. While it is legal to bear arms, it is not legal to hunt human beings and threaten them at gunpoint. - Laura Carlsen 

Huffington Post: An armed border militia group confronted three researchers in Arizona last month, mistaking them for undocumented immigrants or drug traffickers in an incident that drew criticism from local law enforcement officials.

Border militias, or "untrained, utterly anonymous gunmen with no accountability to anyone" who prowl the border on their own time and look for illegal activity, have become an increasing concern for law enforcement officials, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The recent incident with the researchers is the second time in the last few weeks the militias have caused an issue for U.S. border authorities.  Read more. 

Mexico denounces deployment of National Guard in Texas border

Noticias MVS: Through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the government of Mexico reiterated its "strongest rejection" and condemnation of the deployment of these military forces and said it is "irresponsible to manipulate the current state of border security for political purposes."

The government of Mexico reiterated its strongest condemnation of the deployment of the first units of the National Guard of Texas, announced Wednesday by the office of the state governor, Rick Perry.

Through a statement, the Foreign Ministry said that our country states that it is irresponsible to manipulate the current state of border security for political purposes and reiterated that migration must be addressed from a holistic and regional perspective, with a medium-term shared vision that guarantees peace, inclusion and prosperity in the region.

He added that the action taken unilaterally by the government of Texas is undoubtedly wrong and does not contribute to the efforts undertaken by both countries to build a secure border and a solution to migration. This decision does not accredit the collaboration among civil society and opposes the principles and values on which Mexico and the United States govern their bilateral relationship.

Translated by Nidia Bautista 

See Original Article

Texas Bolsters Border Patrol With Its Own

New York Times:  Along the Rio Grande here, the suspected smugglers trying to slip into the United States have certainly noticed their adversaries on the water: burly commandos in black-and-white boats mounted with .30-caliber machine guns and bulletproof shields. The patches on the officers’ camouflage fatigues identify them not as federal Border Patrol agents but as another breed of law enforcement entirely.

Texas game wardens.

Pool photo by Eric Gay

A team of them — whose routine duties include investigating fishing tournament cheaters and making arrests for B.U.I., or boating under the influence — patrol the Rio Grande, pulling smuggling suspects from the river and dodging rocks thrown from the Mexican side. Members of the Texas Rangers have also traded in their familiar white cowboy hats for camouflage so they can blend into the brush on covert nighttime operations.

The Creeping Expansion of the Border Patrol

Aljazeera America 
By Belén Fernández
May 7, 2014

A couple of years ago, a chatty Border Patrol Agent in Texas told me about a recent experience he had near El Paso, a West Texas city near the U.S.-Mexico border. While he was visiting a particular stretch of the border fence that was normally outside his area of operation, he said, a potential threat to homeland security was detected by colleagues on surveillance duty. Attack helicopters were summoned.

The cause for alarm turned out to be a goatherd on the Mexican side of the fence wielding a stick that had been mistaken for a weapon. The helicopters were sent back. As the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Created in 1924 to secure the borders of the United States, the Border Patrol is now part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. It currently boasts more than 21,000 agents, up from 8,500 in 2001. (If certain members of Congress have their way, that number will continue to multiply.) Read more.

Borderline Slavery

NMState, Frontera NorteSur: 

“Each year, thousands of people are trafficked within and across our borders to serve as sex slaves or un-free labor in U.S. homes, fields and factories. Many enter via our southern border with Mexico, after having been trafficked within or across Mexico from other parts of the Americas and beyond…enslaved migrant laborers are often seen simply as undocumented workers who are in the country illegally, while sex trafficking victims are merely prostitutes plying an illegal trade..”

The above passages were from a program backgrounder to a timely conference held this past week at the University of New Mexico (UNM) in Albuquerque: “Borderline Slavery:  Contemporary Issues in Border Security and the Human Trade.”

Sponsored by UNM’s Latin American and Iberian Institute and in cooperation with colleagues from New Mexico State, the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and other academic institutions,  the event drew borderlands scholars, journalists, legal professionals and students.

In a series of presentations, panelists dug into the problem of human trafficking within the socio-economic contexts of massive immigration, globalization, drug prohibition, border militarization, and the War on Terror. And as conference participants learned, the parts can’t be neatly packaged into just a U.S.-Mexico box, but encompass long migrant threads from Central America, the Caribbean and elsewhere.  Read more. 

U.S. uses excessive force along Mexican border: U.N.

Reuters: By Stephanie Nebehay, Oct. 18, 2012.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States has used excessive force against immigrants along the Mexican border and should cooperate in investigating border killings, including those of many young people, the top United Nations human rights official said on Thursday.

"There have been very many young people, teenagers, who have been killed at the border," Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told a news conference.

"The reports reaching me are that there has been excessive use of force by the U.S. border patrols while they are enforcing the immigration laws," she added.

The family of a Mexican teen shot dead when the U.S. Border Patrol opened fire on a group of rock throwers in Mexico last week is planning to bring a lawsuit alleging excessive use of force, Mexican authorities said on Monday.

The Border Patrol said an agent in Nogales, Arizona, opened fire across the border into Mexico on Oct 10. Mexican authorities said 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was shot dead in the incident. Read more. 

Crime Explodes — But an Economy Booms

By: Deborah Caldwell, CNBC:

The Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, the bodies of nine people were found hanging from a bridge and another 14 decapitated and dumped near city hall last May — the result of a turf war between Mexican drug cartels.

The murders exposed the Mexican government’s significant problems; its seemingly out of control violence and its public relations problem —keeping the country’s violence level low enough not to scare away foreign investors.

“When they’re hanging people off bridges — it’s the visual of this. The drug cartels make it gruesome intentionally,” said Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

As a result, when U.S. corporations consider expanding south of the border, Mexico is rarely their country of first choice, he said. Yet after doing research, “they find it’s not as bad as they thought,” Selee said. Then these same companies build a plant or establish a corporate office and watch their investments take off. (More: Mexico's Image Problem With Tourists)

And that is the paradox of Mexico. On one hand, the country’s well-publicized drug killings would appear to be a clear disincentive to foreign investment. On the other hand, the economy has become an under-the-radar economic juggernaut. Read more. 

U.S. Grows An Industrial Complex Along The Border

NPR: TED ROBBINS

September 12, 2012

The United States' southern border bristles with technology and manpower designed to catch illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. Since 1986, the government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on fences, aircraft, detention centers and agents.

But even as federal budgets shrink and illegal immigration ebbs, experts say that there's no end in sight for the growth of the border-industrial complex.

A Growing Investment On The Border

Stocked with equipment like Blackhawk helicopters — hundreds of aircraft fly daily missions — much of the southern border has grown into an industrial complex that is fed by the government and supplied by defense contractors and construction companies.

The infrastructure includes a border fence that in some places has been built and rebuilt several times. And up to 25 miles north of the border, towers, sensors and permanent checkpoints spread across the landscape.

The border-control efforts have spread even farther into the country, into cities where Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pursue illegal immigrants and visa violators. Nationally, it extends to roughly 250 immigrant detention centers.

Some of those centers are run by the government, some by private prison corporations. The government spends an estimated $5 million each day to house detainees awaiting deportation.

All of this effort takes manpower; roughly 80,000 federal employees work in immigration enforcement.

"It is safe to say that there has been more money, manpower, infrastructure, technology, invested in the border-protection mission in the last three years than ever before," says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Read more. 

Drug War: Special U.S. military unit hunts Mexico border drug flights

Reuters: "A highly specialized U.S. military task force is using battlefield technology to help federal police hunt elusive drug traffickers slipping over the Mexico border in hard-to-detect ultralight aircraft, officials said on Thursday.

Joint Task Force North, a cadre of highly specialized Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen, is using the military's cutting edge radar and optical technologies to help the U.S. Border Patrol nab the drug flights in southern Arizona and New Mexico.

Wily traffickers attach bundles of up to a few hundred pounds of marijuana to the small, lightweight aircraft, which are difficult to spot and often fly in areas not covered by the Federal Aviation Administration, officials said." read more

U.S.- Mexico Border: Texas gunboats to patrol Rio Grande border with Mexico

Reuters: "Texas unveiled the second of six new 'interceptor' gunboats on Thursday, similar to Navy swift boats that plied the rivers of Vietnam during the Vietnam War, to patrol the waterways of the Mexico border.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Texas Highway Patrol and the Texas Rangers, said the 34-foot shallow water crafts would be deployed on the Rio Grande and the Intercoastal Waterway, which separates the Texas mainland from Padre Island.

"They have night vision capabilities, they have ballistic shielding, and the first couple of boats have fully automatic machine guns," department spokesman Tom Vinger told Reuters." read more

Border: Military to bolster presence on border

tucsonsentinel.com: "The military's presence along the Mexican border will be bolstered this month when more troops and equipment are deployed to Southern Arizona, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said Thursday. Joint Task Force-North, which oversees military operations along the U.S.-Mexico border, will send additional troops, vehicles and equipment to Arizona and New Mexico in mid-February, the Border Patrol said." read more

Border Security: Answers to the Border Drone Numbers Game

Border Lines: "CBP has answers to the apparent inconsistencies and errors that I have pointed out in previous postings. In response to a request to clarify the confusing and ostensibly errant numbers, CBP warned “it would be unfair to categorize UAS [unmanned aerials systems] by only using drug interdiction or border crossing metrics.”

Yes, ideally CBP would measure progress in securing the homeland by achievements by other measures, such as its role in countering terrorism and keeping the homeland secure – whatever that means." read more

Border Security: National Guard deployment on U.S.-Mexico border has mixed results

The Washington Post: "President Obama’s decision last year to send 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border may have been smart politics, but a growing number of skeptics say the deployment is an expensive and inefficient mission that has made little difference in homeland security. Critics of the deployment include budget hawks, who say it is a waste of money, and residents here along the border, who say they are tired of seeing armed troops in their back yard." read more

Border militarization: Texas Mayors Differ on Using War-Zone Equipment Along Border

More "border spillover" insanity

NYTimes.com: "The Send Equipment for National Defense Act, written by Representative Ted Poe, a Republican from Humble, would require that 10 percent of certain equipment returned from Iraq — like Humvees, night-vision equipment and unmanned aerial surveillance craft — be made available to state and local agencies for border-security operations." read more