In October 1994, the Immigration and Naturalization Service launched
Operation
Gatekeeper
in an effort to move
people away from the migration routes in the San Diego Area. This
operation has called for the United States Government to dramatically
increase
the number of Border Patrol Agents in the San Diego sector and has
given military assistance and resources to them. A wall has been
constructed which begins in the Pacific Ocean and stretches for 14
miles.
The entire northern border of Tijuana is a wall. This
strategy
of militarization has moved people away from the popular suburban
migration routes in the San Diego area and forced people into harsh
and desolate areas. People who migrate to California must now attempt
their crossing through the Imperial Desert or over the Mountains that
are north of Tecate (map).
Despite the hazards of extreme temperatures in the desert and
mountains, people have not been deterred from trying to enter the
United States to find work. Due to the increased militarization which
has pushed these crossing routes into dangerous areas, the number of
migrant deaths have
increased, however, people are still crossing the border at the
same rate. The death rate of the people who are migrating has risen
over 600% since 1994. The rate of those who are apprehended
by the INS has decreased less than 1% during the same period. In the
last five years, over 1,500 people have died along the entire
U.S./Mexico border, with nearly a third of these deaths occurring on
the California/Baja California border.
In February 1999, a
petition
was filed with the Organization of American States.
The ACLU of San
Diego & Imperial Counties and the
California Rural Legal
Assistance Foundation are charging the U.S. Government with human
rights violations pursuant to Operation Gatekeeper. They assert that,
"...the United States has organized and implemented its immigration
and border control policies in a way that has knowingly and
ineluctably led to the deaths of an ever increasing number of
immigrants seeking to enter the United States to obtain jobs or family
reunification. Operation Gatekeeper has steered this flow of
immigrants into the harshest, most unforgiving and most dangerous
terrain on the California-Mexico border."
The United Nations has also been
requested to condemn
Operation Gatekeeper. Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner on Human
Rights,
visited
the Tijuana border in November 1999, criticizing the
U.S. policy and stated that Gatekeeper is, "deflecting people at risk
to their lives when they decide to immigrate." In March 2000, the
U.S. section of
Amnesty
International passed a resolution recommending to its world-wide
parent organization that "the deaths of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico
border be included" in its campaign to expose and prevent human rights
violations by the U.S. government. Amnesty International-USA "does not
take issue with the sovereign right of the United States to police its
international borders, but insists that it do so in a manner which
complies with its international human rights obligations." The
resolution goes on to say that the Gatekeeper strategy is an abuse of
the right to control the border "in that it maximizes, rather than
minimizes, the risk to life."
On the Days of the Dead (1-2 November 2003),
370 crosses were
displayed in Agua Prieta, Mexico to honor the people who have died while
attempting to cross the Arizona border from Mexico since Operation
Gatekeeper was initiated. The crosses were placed next to the border
wall and stretched for one mile. In order to humanize the statistics
most of the crosses were personalized with the name, age, and place of
origin of the people who have died, however, many crosses were
inscribed "No Identificado," for the dead who have never been
identified. An altar was placed near the crosses in remembrance of the
people who have died trying to migrate. In October 2004, the crosses were
again placed along the border wall from October 1 (the 5th anniversary
of Operation Gatekeeper) through the Day of the Dead on November
2nd. An additional 233 people had died and an ongoing listing of migrants that have died has been developed.
Along the border wall between San Diego and Tijuana, crosses adorne the metal fence. Huge murals lie in between each year's sets of crosses in efforts to add to the visual understanding of abuse.
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