EDITORIAL U.S. border police makes no sense
Isabel Garcia, a Tucson, Ariz.,
attorney, asks the most unsettling question about the increase in deaths among
Mexicans trying to make their way to jobs in the United States: So, why
are we forcing people to run a deadly obstacle course to find employment in
U.S. industries which are begging for them?
Apparently, no one has a good answer.
The troubled and troubling attempts by the United States to seal
its southern border with Mexico has been a tragic failure. For too many years,
the sham went on silently: The United States desperately needed Mexican workers
who would labor in our chemical-saturated fields or in meat packing plants or
in low-level construction jobs for a pittance. They often live in substandard
housing and are constantly uprooting their lives to follow the pattern of
modern agriculture or other jobs. At the same time, the government has been
insistent on making travel miserable for the desperate border crossers.
As Jim Wrights reporting points out (see page 12) the deadly
game has finally been exposed by some former INS officials once charged with
carrying out the irrational policy.
Anonymous Mexicans desperate enough for low-wage jobs in the
United States that they risk death in crossing mountains and desert are not
good bets to get a fair hearing before a Congressional committee.
But their case is worth pressing as more and more die in anonymity
in the wilderness of the American Southwest.
If Doris Meissner, former Immigration and Naturalization Service
Commission official, can admit in a talk to new border patrol recruits that the
current strategy for patrolling the border has played a role in the deaths of
illegal border crossers, then the policy is in serious need of revision.
The former chief patrol agent of the Tucson Sector, Ron Sanders,
said he is haunted by memories of coming upon dead border crossers. Sanders is
one of the whistleblowers who believes the shift in policy has been a tragic
mistake.
Policy makers may want to continue a legitimate debate on
immigration policy and limits to immigration from Mexico. But openly allowing
this double track on immigration -- satisfying both the needs of U.S. business
and those who think borders should be closed -- creates a shameful trail of
victims. The policy now is mystifying, refusing as it does to recognize the
simple fact that American industries have become dependent on cheap Mexican
labor.
On the most pragmatic terms, a policy that does not force people
to risk death to get to jobs we want them to fill is certainly not beyond our
capacity to devise. As Garcia put it, People wouldnt be forced to
hire a smuggler or cross the desert at risk to themselves if we had a realistic
immigration policy.
National Catholic Reporter, February 2,
2001
|