Bush's immigration plan: War and servitude

Abajo con las fronteras, carajo!

"America is not going to militarize the border." - Bush this evening.  (full video at Fox "News")

So, sending 6,000 National Guard to the border is doing what to it, exactly?  How does adding 6,000 more Border Patrol, bringing to 9,000 the number of Border Patrol agents added since 9/11, not count as militarization?

To a degree, Bush is correct.  They aren't militarizing the border, because the border has already been militarized.  For example:

Operation Gatekeeper, launched by the Border Patrol in the San Diego area in 1994 as one of the first efforts to militarize the border, was developed with the assistance of the Defense Department's Center for Low Intensity Conflict.

The National Border Patrol Strategy released in March of last year by U.S. Customs and Border Protection calls for:

• Checkpoints, intelligence-driven special operations, and targeted patrols;


• Increased and more mobile personnel and improved air and ground support;


• Increased rapid response capabilities;


• Sensing systems, Remote Video Surveillance and Sensing (RVSS) cameras, air support, and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)


• Radiation detection equipment


• Improved communication infrastructure (Land Mobile Radio, cellular coverage, satellite
  communication capabilities)


• Remote access to national law enforcement databases through the use of mobile computing solutions


• 16 Mobile alien processing capabilities to support field enforcement activities


• Checkpoints and high-intensity enforcement zones


• Roads, lights, fencing, and vehicle barriers

And last December's "Secure Border Initiative" calls for:

• Expanded detention capacity, bringing the number of beds to house detainees to 20,000.  And guess who is building those detention centers?  You guessed it - Halliburton.


• More Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), aerial assets, Remote Video Surveillance camera systems, and sensors.


• Improved border infrastructure in certain areas by increasing physical layers of security, building access roads to enable Border Patrol to speed response efforts, installing stadium style lighting to deter border crossers, and providing surveillance cameras to monitor incursion along targeted areas of the border.

These policies, which amount to a declaration of war against migrants, have led to more than 3,000 deaths on the border since 1994.  The National Guard and more Border Patrol will mean many more deaths.  It is not a solution.

Bush's plan for a "Guest Worker" program is no better than any of his other ideas.  It is mere code for "indentured servitude."  Most programs permit workers to only work the one job they were hired for, with few rights.  As Global Exchange notes,

The moving force behind most such programs has been the agribusiness lobby, which wishes to increase the labor supply in order to keep down wages, and moreover prefers a group of workers locked in legal chains and marching social shackles. Many recent bracero or guest-worker programs have discriminatory features we would not countenance in our own society such as only permitting the contracting of male workers. Some proposals have suggested a wage below the national minimum wage. Others suggest exempting such workers from other standard labor rights and benefits.

Killing and enslaving migrants will not solve the problem.  Capitalism, neoliberalism, corporate globalization and imperialist-created borders are the problems.  The only solution is a world where no one is illegal and everyone has complete freedom of movement.  As Propagandhi says: "Fuck the Border!" [download mp3] [lyrics]

Comments

[barb]

Hey Scott, great post! Would you consider submitting it to the Carnival of the Liberals?. I'm hosting this edition and we're pretty light on good articles. thanks!

[scott]

Hey barb - yeah, I'll submit it, if you think it'll be a good fit.

[the slexx]

hey scott,
while you're right that the border is already militarized, what Bush is planning to do with the Nat'l Guard is actually use them mostly as functionaries. As in they won't be armed and will be acting as bureaucrats and the like. So yeah, Bush is actually technically correct in that they won't be there for "military" purposes, but then again, if they just need paper pushers and couriers and whatnot...(i could make a really tasteless, though pertinent joke here if you can read my mind)

ps-loved K's post on immigrants

[scott]

hey slexxy,

i see your point, but disagree. while the NG won't have the same role as the border patrol - at least not yet - their functioning will be military in scope.

Bush said that they will be “operating surveillance systems...analyzing intelligence...installing fences and vehicle barriers...building patrol roads...and providing training.”

So in effect, they are there to militarize the border.

Glad you liked K's post. How's the noise (oh sorry, music) life going? storm any more bastilles?

[Inquisitor]

You have freedom of movement until you decide to walk in my front door without my permission. I have freedom of movement until I want to enter a museum after it has closed. Immigrants have freedom of movement until they want to sneak across our borders.

We have a right to know that those entering our country are not criminals or terrorists and that they will add to our society and not just be a drain on it. This country is our home. And we have a reasonable expectation that anyone who wants to enter it has the decency to at least knock first.

I doubt your "Fuck the Border!" attitude would survive someone walking into your house and crapping on your living room rug.

[scott]

You have people walking into your house and taking a crap on your living room rug?! Now that I would like to see!

I've had people take craps on my porch, but they were just druggies, and they were "citizens".

Inquisitor wrote: You have people walking into your house and taking a crap on your living room rug?! Now that I would like to see! END QUOTE

Scott wrote: I've had people take craps on my porch, but they were just druggies, and they were "citizens". END QUOTE

Well, perhaps you do not mind it if people waltz about YOUR property and do as they please, but that doesn't give them the right to do so on mine. What if you went home and found a couple dozen freeloaders had freely moved into your home?

Inquisitor wrote: We have a right to know that those entering our country are not criminals or terrorists and that they will add to our society and not just be a drain on it. This country is our home. And we have a reasonable expectation that anyone who wants to enter it has the decency to at least knock first. END QUOTE

This is entirely rational and totally lacking in racist rhetoric; it is common sense.