English 110 - Immigration Reform and the Inefficacy of the U.S. Border

Daniel Wolfe

English 110

Dison

November 19, 2015

Immigration Reform and The Inefficacy of the U.S. Border

When the topic of illegal immigration arises, the U.S.-Mexico border is often the first image to come to mind. Considering the amount of money that is directed towards it, this comes as no surprise. Coinciding with a new, punitive form of immigration enforcement, appropriations for the border have skyrocketed into the billions. One would think that with the money geared toward curbing the “crisis” of illegal immigration, progress would have been made, but this is not the case. The number of immigrants entering the United States has actually increased exponentially in the last ten years. All that a more militaristic border achieves is to force these immigrants to seek assistance from smugglers, utilizing remote mountain ranges and deserts as alternative gateways. Not only has the U.S. helped perpetuate the violence and poverty in Central America that immigrants are attempting to escape, it has also closed its border to those nations. The U.S. also undervalues the benefits potential immigrant workers offer to America culturally and economically. The inefficiency of the border is an immense problem, one that can only be helped by a reduction in spending for immigration enforcement. United States immigration policy and, further, the U.S.-Mexico border do not serve their purpose; millions of illegal immigrants currently live in the U.S. and thousands more enter each year due to problems in their homeland directly and indirectly caused by the U.S. itself.

Immigration enforcement has become intensified over the past ten years. Since 2001, the U.S.-Mexico border has become more and more militarized and sealed off. According to Franklin Foer, author of the article “Let the Kids Stay,” this is due in part to misinformed rumors that the perpetrators of 9/11 had gained access to U.S. by land (Foer 1). Since then, spending on border enforcement has tripled. During the fiscal year of 2002, says Jacob Stowell, writer for the Law & Society Review, annual border appropriations were at $1 billion (Stowell 2). Over seven years that number increased to over $18 billion (Stowell 2). Jill Lindsey Harrison and Sarah E. Lloyd, sociology professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, report that the number of border patrol agents has increased from 3,000 in 1985 to the staggering amount of over 20,000 in 2009; this coincides perfectly with the increase in border spending (Harrison 3). The border is not the only place toward which immigration enforcement appropriations go. Immigration enforcement is very much a war being waged on two fronts: at the border and on U.S. soil.

Just as the Border Patrol’s purpose is to keep immigrants from entering the United States, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) focuses on locating and prosecuting violators of immigration law in America. As with rapid ascent in funding for the border, ICE’s annual appropriations have increased twenty-four-fold, from $9 million in the fiscal year of 2003 to $218 million in 2008 (Harrison and Lloyd 2). ICE not only functions as a force to locate and deport illegal immigrants, it also tracks down American employers who have undocumented workers on their payroll. Leveling criminal charges against these employers and deporting their undocumented employees marks a dramatic shift in immigration policy and “a radical departure from the ‘catch-and-release’ policy of the past” (Harrison 2).

Historically, immigration policy focused less on employers and more on border areas and undocumented migrant workers. This served to efficiently deport illegal immigrants without threatening industry productivity. (Harrison 2). When employers are prosecuted for immigration law violations, oftentimes their business goes bankrupt while waiting for a court date, thus interrupting capital accumulation. The wait for a court date is very long, considering how outnumbered immigration judges are to Border Patrol and ICE agents; in 1999, the ratio of Border Patrol agents to judges was 41:1; in 2008, it had almost doubled from 81:1 (Harrison 5). Quite simply, the court system has not kept up with the resources devoted to immigration enforcement. This has led to an increasing amount of suspected immigration law violators being unlawfully detained in what ICE boasts as “the largest detention system in the country,” all at the expense of the taxpayer (Harrison 6). Money plays a major role in immigration policy; the amount the U.S. devotes to it should yield considerable results. And while ICE is working fast to deport immigrants, the border just isn’t keeping them out.

The border does not effectively keep immigrants from entering the United States. Even with all the funding for border personnel, expansion of walls (stretching as far as 520 miles), vehicles such as trucks and helicopters, and technology like night-vision, unmanned aircraft, and underground sensors, hundreds of thousands of immigrants still enter the country each year (Harrison 4). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Latinos make up the largest portion of foreign-born immigrants as well as being the most prominent minority group in the U.S. The Latino population grew from 10.8% to 15.1% in the span of just ten years (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006). Despite ICE’s deportation of over 370,000 people in 2013, Keith Dannemiller reports in his article “Under-Age and On The Move” that there are still over 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States (Dannemiller 3). This steady increase belies the sense of security the border should give.

The Government Accountability Office rated the United States control of the border in 2011 to be 84%, yet there are considerable statistics to disprove this vague claim (Foer 3). The percentage of migrants who successfully cross the border has been near 100% since the mid-1990s (Harrison 7). Between 400,000 and 500,000 immigrants enter the country each year; the number of unaccompanied children entering the United States went from 6,800 in 2010 to 15,700 in 2011. So far this year, 52,000 children have made their way across the border (Dannemiller 1). Stopping 84% of this flow would mean stopping millions of attempted migrants. What “control of the border” means is never precisely defined, but if it means effectiveness at preventing immigrants from crossing the border, then this number must be false. No matter how protected the border becomes, highly motivated immigrants will find a way around it.

The more militarized and sealed off the border becomes, the more immigrants will turn to alternate pathways into the United States. Scholars have shown that the overly militarized border does not achieve its goal of reducing immigration; the costs and dangers of immigration have no effect on migrants’ decision to immigrate (Harrison 7). If the border is known to be heavily guarded and sealed off, it only makes sense for immigrants to seek out other ways into the U.S. This results in a shift towards less noticeable regions such as mountains and remote deserts, and an increasing dependency on smugglers (Harrison 7). Consequently, the death toll of immigrants crossing these remote ranges has doubled between 1995 and 2005 (Harrison 6). The dangers associated with immigration do not act as a deterrent for migrants. For some, the dangers in their homeland greatly outweigh any that they will face while migrating. And in the case of Central America, the United States has played a role in creating the circumstances causing these immigrants to flee their countries of origin.