Immigration, the war on drugs and border enforcement in the 1980s and 1990s

Border enforcement efforts intensified significantly in the 1980s due to the proliferation of cross-border smuggling and other criminal activities in the Southwest. As the Reagan administration (1981-89) ramped up US counter-drug enforcement efforts, the INS strongly asserted itself in this area. The adoption of drug enforcement as a primaiy mission of the INS, and specifically the USBP, led to a qualitative shift in the agency's role and character. In the context of the fight against organized crime, the agency and border enforcement measures in general became increasingly “militarized”, according to Dunn’s (1996) characterization. Borrowing from the doctrine of “low intensity conflict” or “counterinsurgency”, border enforcement increasingly relied on technologies and tactics often used in military combat:

• • Helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft for transportation and reconnaissance¹⁸
• • Unmanned, remote-controlled aerial drones equipped with cameras
• • Electronic sensors (for the detection of heat, sound and vibration)
• • Night vision, radar and infrared equipment
• • Special forces units (e.g.. Border Patrol Tactical Team, BORTAC)¹⁹
• • High-powered firearms (e.g., automatic and semi-automatic weapons)²⁰
• • Special detention facilities for detainees.

Such innovations were complemented by additional measures to fortify and facilitate operational control of border areas, including greater manpower, closed circuit television systems, high-powered lighting, as well as chain-link fencing. The growth of the USBP was particularly notable, as the number of agents grew from roughly 2,900 in 1980 to around 4,000 by 1994. In addition, the Immigration Act of 1990 called for new physical barriers along the border, which led the following year to the introduction of seven miles of corrugated metal fencing along the San Diego-Tijuana corridor, using military landing mats that were welded together and installed by Navy Seals (Dunn, 1996: 66-67). While chain-linked fencing had been installed in certain border areas in the 1970s, the introduction of a lengthier and more substantial “wall” along the border was a significant shift that invited both praise and criticism (including comparisons to the soon-to-be-defunct Berlin Wall).

Advocates of these intensified enforcement efforts lauded them as necessary and overdue measures to promote order in a time of turbulence along the border. In addition to the proliferation of drug trafficking, Mexico began to experience

Escalation of US-Mexico border enforcement 33 severe economic problems during the turbulent decade of the 1980s. In this context, a sense of lawlessness prevailed in key border corridors. Large numbers of would-be immigrants, smugglers and petty criminals congregated in these areas, often using poorly guarded border zones as a staging area for incursions into the US. Individuals who ventured into the no man’s land along the border became easy targets for predatory criminal activities, including robbery and rape. Meanwhile, residents on both sides of the border were subject to property crimes and other inconveniences that contributed to the mounting political support for an escalation of the strategy of concentrated border enforcement in the 1990s and 2000s.

In the 1990s, concerns about undocumented immigration and drug trafficking were intensified by the US-Mexican economic integration under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). As numerous observers have noted, the intensification of enforcement measures during the NAFTA era was sharply at odds with the promise of a brave, new “borderless” world, and thereby illustrated the underlying contradictions and limits of globalization. By the advent of the new millennium, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US provoked a historically unprecedented expansion and reconfiguring border security measures in an effort to bolster US national security from unseen enemies in an increasingly interconnected world (Longo, 2018).

IRC A had directly charged the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) -of which the USBP was a part - with the task of reducing undocumented immigration. As noted earlier, IRCA also likely made this task more difficult, since newly legalized immigrants provided a draw for relatives and friends to enter the US, in many cases illegally. Indeed, by 1990, the number of undocumented immigrants grew to an estimated 3.5 million (Office of Policy And Planning, 2004) In response. Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) proclaimed: “Uncontrolled immigration is one of the greatest threats to the future of this country”. Yet, as Payan (2006) observes, the perception of the threat had less to do with competition for jobs than with other concerns. In particular, many US citizens grew convinced that undocumented immigrants were flocking to the US to take advantage of the country’s generous social welfare benefits. Moreover, the prospect of a major economic agreement between Canada, Mexico and the US heightened fears about a “NAFTA Train” of undocumented immigration and organized crime moving across the US-Mexican border.

In response to these concerns, US authorities began an aggressive effort to stem the flow of undocumented migration and illegal drugs into the country by developing a strategy of concentrated border enforcement. This strategy is credited to El Paso’s then-USBP sector chief Silvestre Reyes, who redeployed hundreds of agents in 1993 to devise what he initially referred to as the "Blockade”. Reyes's initiative, later relabeled as "Operation Hold the Line”, was arguably a continuation of a trend. That is. his strategy built upon earlier described trends that deployed new technology and physical barriers along the border, such as those that had been introduced in San Diego as recently as 1991. Yet, more so than previous efforts. Operation Hold the Line placed the concept of operationalcontrol at the center of enforcement efforts at the border. Even more important, the real key to Reyes’ strategy was the redeployment of personnel - some 400 USBP agents posted in quarter-mile increments along the border - to deter the unauthorized entry of immigrants.

Since the strategy of concentrated enforcement diverted immigration flows to less well-guarded portions of the border, the result was to dramatically drive down attempted crossings in targeted urban areas. Although net levels of undocumented immigration remained unaffected, the ability to achieve isolated zones of operational control gained substantial support from locals and captured the attention of national politicians eager for policy solutions to a seemingly intractable problem. During the Clinton administration (1992-2000), officials were under intense pressure to do something in part because of criticism from conservatives. As Andreas (2000) notes, the 1994 re-election campaign of Republican governor Pete Wilson in California broadcast video-taped images of immigrants teeming at the border, overwhelming immigration authorities, and charging en masse into the US. These images were repeated by a growing media industry - and especially conservative news commentary from a stream of Fox News personalities like Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Laura Ingraham and Bill O’Reilly - fueled the fears of many ordinary citizens about the rising tide of immigration and the failure to secure US borders.

In an effort to address such concerns, in 1994 the Clinton administration appointed San Diego-based US Attorney Alan Bersin as the lead coordinator or “czar” for Southwest border enforcement efforts. Bersin oversaw the implementation of Reyes’ strategy in San Diego under the title "Operation Gatekeeper”, while other corridors along the border did the same. As Hold the Line and Gatekeeper tended to divert flows of immigrants to other sectors of the border, the strategy was later deployed in 1998 in Brownsville, Texas as “Operation Rio Grande” and in Nogales, Arizona in 1999 as “Operation Safeguard”. Combined, these operations produced a dramatic increase in force deployments, fencing and technology over the course of the 1990s. From 1990 to 2000, the number of Border Patrol agents more than doubled to reach over 9,000 agents, and steel fencing and high-tech surveillance systems were deployed throughout the Southwest border region.

The massive surge was intended to achieve what border authorities referred to as “prevention through deterrence” by raising the costs of unauthorized entry to an extent that would discourage migrants - who were presumed to be rational economic actors - from attempting to enter the US. Indeed, greater enforcement increased not only the probability of being detained at the border, but it also increased the probability of being preyed upon by dodgy migrant smugglers or being injured or killed. In this sense, the policy of prevention through deterrence failed to anticipate the degree to which migrants would be willing to ignore the rising costs and risks associated with border crossing, and large-scale migration continued into the 21st century (Cerrutti and Massey, 2004; Cornelius and Salehyan, 2007).