The Slow Slide to Barbarity on the Border
by Laura Carlsen
This
article originally appeared on the America's Program site. It is an
extrapolation, a logical look into the future based on present trends and political
realities in American border perceptions and actions.
July 4, 2020.
U.S. Border Security officials announced that a
record 193 IFs (Immigrant Invading Forces) were eliminated in the American
Militarized Security Zone yesterday as a result of illegal attempts to invade
the homeland.
In response
to the latest deaths - the highest fatality count since last week's
record-setting 177 - a press release
from Border Security (BS), a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, states: "The high number of aliens whose attempts to invade U.S.
territory were thwarted reflects the continued success of the combined
technological and military measures to secure the border. While the division
laments the loss of life, Americans can sleep soundly knowing that the
sacrifice of our troops has once again protected them from hostile threats to
the American way of life."
For its
part, the Mexican government immediately issued a statement apologizing for the
surge in lethal attempts to incur in U.S territory, and promising to increase
raids on "potential migrating groups," both in border zones and in
the 30 states throughout the nation that report "high to extremely
high" out-migration rates.
"Americans can sleep soundly knowing that the sacrifice
of our troops has once again protected them from hostile threats to the
American way of life."
In its
daily bulletin, the Binational Body Recovery Unit (BBRU) reported that of the
deaths along the Territorial Delineator, 77 aliens died of electrocution along
the Laredo-Brownsville high-amp fence, 37 were shot to death by border troops
for suspicious actions, 46 died from land mine explosions, and 33 from exposure
to toxic substances after attempts to forge the Rio Grande.
In the
northern part of the American Militarized Security Zone - a hundred-mile wide
swath along the length of the former U.S.-Mexico border, expropriated by the
U.S. government for security reasons in 2013 - another 15 immigrants were hit
by moving vehicles while fleeing ground troops or aerial fire, and 17 expired
from exposure or dehydration in the Sonora desert.
The
youngest victim of yesterday's toll was six-month old Clara Sanchez, shot in
the arms of her mother, Fidelia Rodriguez as she fled for cover in the Sonora
desert near Douglas, Arizona. The U.S. Border Patrol reported that the young
woman was seen "concealing a suspicious object" assumed to be
contraband and failed to respond to orders in English to halt immediately (the
Border Patrol is prohibited from giving orders in Spanish as a result of the
2015 "English Only" regulation which applies to all government
services).
Family
members confirmed the identity of the oldest victim as Juvencio Lopez, 72
years. Lopez's sons, construction workers in Santa Rosa, California who
requested anonymity to avoid prosecution, said that their father had recently
been diagnosed with cancer and made the decision to come north to say good-bye
to his children. The brothers, who have not seen their father for 35 years
since they left their native village of Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, stated that they
tried to warn the old man of the dangers of attempting the journey, but that he
refused to be dissuaded. The Border Security and Immigrant Control Reform of
2010 eliminated the final remaining mechanisms for family reunification and
visitation rights.
Following
the BBRU announcement of yesterday's record casualties, the underground human
rights group, Migrants are Human, immediately issued a statement calling the
deaths "the latest high-water mark in a tide of inhumanity" and urged
local communities to strengthen clandestine sanctuary efforts. All government
and non-governmental services to migrants were criminalized in 2009 as a result
of the backlash against the broad immigrant mobilizations of 2006-2009.
"The landscape is marked by the giant shells of abandoned
commercial centers, many of which have been converted to immigrant detention
centers."
In a
related story, the president of the Border Business Council reported that the
presence of over 50,000 troops in the region has caused an exodus of legal
businesses and consumers. Since the 2010 crackdown on immigrant invaders,
Mexican shoppers who filled Texas malls have virtually disappeared behind the
tortilla curtain, leaving a landscape marked by the giant shells of abandoned
commercial centers, many of which have been converted to immigrant detention
centers. U.S. consumers have been unable to fill the void due to the depression
resulting from massive labor shortages and economic paralysis in the region.
Real estate
values have also plummeted in the region, according to the latest realty
association reports. Since then-Border Patrol Director David Aguilar's
announcement on May 9, 2007 authorizing the use of firearms against unarmed
migrants, the sound of gunfire has become a daily occurrence and families that
have lived in the area for generations have moved out to escape the violence.
Local school psychologists report that symptoms of school-age children are
similar to those found in prolonged war situations, and the presence of
low-flying unmanned surveillance aircraft, ground troops, and persecutions have
resulted in a climate of fear that is internalized by the children.
Back to the Present: 2007
Today,
2007, the steep increase in immigration throughout the world reflects major
changes in the international economy. Global migrants are not only a result of
these changes; migrants are also powerful agents of change. The personal
decision to leave - multiplied by thousands - transforms the communities that
are left behind, the receiving communities, and the migrants themselves.
"If we do not take responsibility for directing the
economic and social transformations that are taking place, we will soon find
ourselves moving toward the barbarity portrayed above."
Change
causes fear. Yet knee-jerk reactions against change can cause far more damage.
If, as a society and as citizens, we do not take responsibility for directing
the economic and social transformations that are taking place, and work
together to respond with rational and humane policies, we will soon find
ourselves moving toward the barbarity portrayed above.
We have not
yet reached the year 2020, when hindsight will yield only a cruel "I told
you so." We still have a chance to ask ourselves what kind of society we
are, and what kind of society we want.
Answers are
not easy, but supposed solutions that build walls, divide people, foment hate,
and increase violence lead only to barbarity.
* All
statistics on present and past dates are real, all future are extrapolated from
present trends.
Laura Carlsen is the director of the IRC
Americas Program at www.americaspolicy.org in Mexico City, where
she has been a writer and political analyst for more than two decades.
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