Blockading the Border and Human Rights: The El Paso Operation That Remade Immigration Enforcement

CHAPTER 5

Previous chapters focused on the El Paso Border Patrol’s enforcement activities and its excesses, particularly in relationship to its “subject population,” with some attention to human rights problems, but without close examination. Here I undertake a detailed examination of known human rights abuses committed by the El Paso Border Patrol over time, particularly before and after Operation Blockade—which we will see changed, but did not resolve, such problems. In this we will see the long-overlooked effects of a particular bureaucratic power structure on the surrounding social environment (Perrow 1986, 2000), on its “subject population,” in graphic detail. As we proceed we would do well to keep in mind the notion of “social triage,” in which the human rights and well-being of disadvantaged groups are written off or repressed by powerful bureaucracies (Sjoberg 1996). In the contrasting citizenshipnationalist view (Soysal 1994; Jacobson 1996), measures to protect the nation and national sovereignty (including border enforcement) are justifiable regardless of their impact on immigrants, and sometimes even on minority group citizens (Eschbach et al. 2001b). “Official” data on El Paso Border Patrol human rights abuses were not accessible.1 However, there is a substantial body of evidence on human rights abuses, broadly defined, and other forms of mistreatment by the El Paso Border Patrol, from “unofficial” (i.e., nongovernmental) sources, mainly narrative data drawn from victims through the pioneering efforts of the Border Rights Coalition and the landmark Bowie lawsuit . Consequently, this chapter is a sort of “unofficial” history of the issue—i.e., a bottom-up view from adversely affected members of the unit’s “subject population.” I selected cases for examination based upon availability and the discovery of new data (Sjoberg and Nett 1997, 137, CHAPTER 5 HumanRightsIssuesandtheElPasoBorderPatrol 126 Chapter 5 141, 144) on a sensitive, relatively hidden subject, using an inductive approach to bring out new information for analysis and consideration. I gathered most of my data from twenty-one in-depth, open-ended interviews during the mid-1990s: twelve with principal informants-victims (all Mexican American or Mexican), five with ngo rights activists, and four with Border Patrol officials from varying ranks.2 I obtained much of this data in my capacity as a director of a brc video project on rights abuses that was part of the settlement of the Bowie lawsuit (noted in Chapter 1). Given the data available, the bulk of the chapter focuses on abuses committed against residents of El Paso and surrounding areas on the U.S. side of the border, although unauthorized border crossers from Juárez and elsewhere in Mexico undoubtedly experienced the bulk of Border Patrol abuses over the years. They were the overwhelming majority of those apprehended by agents, but they had little opportunity to report mistreatment. Despite the critical tone of my presentation here, it is important to stipulate at the outset that I am not suggesting all or most Border Patrol enforcement encounters result in abuses. Moreover, human rights abuses by Mexican police authorities are generally much worse and more widespread overall. Rather, my objective is to shed light on an important topic that is often ignored or underexamined by scholars, and to also look for key themes and patterns in the data. Unfortunately, the available data do not allow us to determine the precise frequency of abuse in the El Paso area, though this has been examined for other areas of the border.3 My approach is also guided by Durkheim’s classic insight (noted by Sjoberg and Nett 1997, 264) that the study of “deviance ” helps us to better understand the “normal.” The four groupings of rights abuse cases that I examine in detail are: South El Paso residents during the 1960s and 1970s, undocumented Mexican border crossers in the 1980s and early 1990s, South El Paso residents in the late 1980s and early 1990s leading up to Operation Blockade, and those same residents after the initiation of Operation Blockade through the mid-1990s. This approach affords a look at Border Patrol abuses across time and among different types of victims. Human Rights Abuses in the 1960s and 1970s in South El Paso Human rights abuses by the El Paso Border Patrol are by no means a phenomenon limited to the recent era of monitoring by the Border Human Rights Issues 127 Rights Coalition and others, though obviously information for earlier periods is not as available. Two female Mexican American...