As Reform Falters, Immigration Focus Is on the Frontier
Whatever the reason, experts on both sides of the issue, along with dozens of border residents, say that change has been dramatic in the year and a half since the Department of Homeland Security kicked off a controversial effort to overhaul the way the border is policed. The Secure Border Initiative, as it's called, focuses mostly on adding infrastructure like walls and roads, military-style technology, and personnel. Critics call it a major militarization of the border, which will only push illegal immigrants to pay more—or do more dangerous things—to get across. But Homeland Security officials insist the new strategy will help them gain "operational control." Essentially, that means allowing them to detect almost all entrances into the United States and giving them a good shot at catching those who get through.
A surge in the workforce is intended to help them meet that goal. The Border Patrol is part way through a hiring blitz that calls for adding 6,000 agents to its 13,200 force by 2009. President Bush has also deployed 6,000 National Guard troops. On the banks of the Colorado River near Andrade, Calif., Sgt. Jimmy Kincaid of Greensboro, N.C., peers through his night-vision scope at about a dozen people, one with an inner tube, gathering on the Mexican side. "They know we're here," he says, "and they're not going to decide to chance it."
Added border fencing may make such decisions easier. National Guard engineers are helping to throw up 370 miles of fencing or metal border wall and 200 miles of squat barriers designed to stop cars from rushing the border. In San Luis, the metal fence that's hugged the city for eight years is now flanked with a second fence with holes so tiny agents say only someone with the hands of a 2-year-old could scale it. Vehicle barriers—metal poles filled with concrete—march for 9 miles from the city into the open desert. All told, it creates at least the appearance of an impenetrable fortress. Nestor Martinez, who frequently visits family here, says hotels on the other side that were once full of illegal immigrants are now practically empty.
Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff has also dramatically changed detention practices to alter the flow of immigrants. For years most migrant Mexicans were processed and returned to their country in a matter of hours, while non-Mexicans had to go through other channels to go home. But until recently, because of a shortage of detainee space, the vast majority of non-Mexicans captured by the Border Patrol were let free, pending court dates they rarely showed up for. Officials have since ended that "catch and release" practice"—and arrests have dropped—but they now find themselves with a new challenge: a 52 percent jump in the number of people they are now holding.
Tent city. Some of those detainees landed at the Willacy Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas, a prison of 10 Kevlar pods that can hold a total of 2,000 people in air-conditioned but windowless rooms. Critics call it a claustrophobic tent city, but Chertoff says he plans to build even more of the relatively inexpensive facilities. "It's not the Four Seasons," he concedes, "but it's clean, habitable...and meets any reasonable standard of prison conditions."
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