Different Border Wars
Tom Barry
I apologize for my long absence from the Border Wars group.
Finally, I got something done!
Over past year, I have been pulled in two directions, making it hard to finish any one piece of my “transborder” work.
On the north side of the border, I’ve been researching U.S. border strategy and border security programs. This posting relates the first of three reports I’ve been trying to finish. It’s an analysis of the Border Patrol’s new strategy (more on that below). Two other reports – one on homeland security’s drone program, and the other on the Border Patrol’s high-tech electronic surveillance – are forthcoming.
The absurdity of U.S. border security policy makes it difficult to take it seriously. But billions of dollars are being spent (and wasted), immigrants are dying (and being murdered), and almost everyone accepts that the border security buildup is necessary for immigration reform.
So it’s important, of course, to figure out what is being done to “secure our borders,” and what the Border Patrol is planning to do in the future.
The “Border Wars” designation of this group refers mostly to the U.S. security-based policies with respect to immigration, drugs, and border control in general.
As grave as these issues are, it’s become apparent to me that the significance of the term border wars may have to do more with water than drugs or immigrants. Tensions over water – both surface and groundwater supplies – are escalating across Mexico’s north, especially in Chihuahua.
I am working on a book on transborder water challenges, and how communities and visionary individuals are responding to climate change and the intensifying aridness in the greater border region. As any of you who have researched water issues, it’s dauntingly complex. And in Mexico the research takes you to the heart of Mexico’s corrupt political system.
Figuring out the politics, economics, and science of water resources is taxing my research and analytical abilities. Whenever I think I finally am closer to grasping it all, I find there’s a new dimension taking me deeper into the shadowlands of Mexican politics. It’s possible that I will never fully understand all the related water-resource issues, but I think I will soon be at a point where I can start putting my research into written words, which I will post to Border Wars.
Below is the news release about the Border Patrol’s border-security muddle that the Center for International Policy published today.
Tom
New Report Finds No Strategic Direction for U.S. Border Patrol
U.S. Border Patrol Mired in a Strategic Muddle, No Clear Direction for Future of Immigration and Drug Enforcement
Support is building for immigration reform, and states and communities are rejecting harsh federal drug laws. However, the border security buildup – which is almost exclusively focused on immigration and drug enforcement – continues. CIP’s latest International Policy Report, The Border Patrol’s Strategic Muddle [PDF | HTML], chronicles the Border Patrol’s missteps, examines the agency’s evolving strategy, and points to new directions in border policy.
“At a time when corrective initiatives are building to reform restrictive federal policies for immigrants and marijuana – the two traditional targets of border control operations – the Border Patrol seems stuck in a strategic muddle, as evident in its new strategy document,” says the report’s author, Tom Barry.
Following intense criticism for its billion-dollar high-tech programs, excessive and cross-border violence, and continuing failure to provide performance and cost-benefit evaluations of its various new security initiatives, the Border Patrol released the 2012 – 2016 Border Patrol Strategic Plan.
The latest plan was intended to put critics’ concerns over these problems to rest; it instead ignores them entirely. According to Barry, “The 2012 – 2016 Border Patrol Strategic Plan is not a serious document. It includes repeated references to vague tactics such as rapid response, intelligence, community engagement, whole-of-government approaches, and inter-governmental integration.”
Newly reelected President Obama declared that operations to “secure our border” are fundamental to immigration reform. Yet, as the Border Patrol’s new strategy statement illustrates, the administration’s border policy lacks firm strategic directions, apparently driven more by politics than any assessment of threats to homeland security.