Making Myths and Building Barriers

Presidential Authority’s Long History with the U.S.-Mexico Border

From his announcement of his bid for president, Donald Trump made a promise to his supporters that he would build a “wall” along the U.S. – Mexico border because, he warned his audience, that border-crossers, “[t]hey’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” For the rest of Trump’s campaign trail and throughout his presidency, the rhetoric of shutting down border crossing by building a wall has been at the heart of his domestic security policies and the fulfilling of his campaign promise to “Make America Great Again.”

But Trump is not the first president to use America’s almost 2000-mile long border that it shares with Mexico to further his own political agenda. There exists in the United States a long history of American presidents attempting to control the flow of humans and goods over the U.S.-Mexico border through a broad range of means, from barbed wire and steel barriers to the manpower of the U.S. Border Patrol, to fulfill campaign promises, make flagrant displays of authority on an international stage, and to assuage fears held by some Americans of the entrance of immigrants into the nation.

The politicizing of the border and wielding of executive resources to regulate it has had ramifications that have shaped both the physical border and also played a role in making and perpetuating myths about Mexico as a lawless nation and immigrants as economic burdens, criminals, and drug smugglers. Below are several examples to educate on the history of how the border has been a site of both barrier building and myth making for U.S. presidents – and the dangerous implications this sort of statecraft has in the perception of various groups by members of American society.

Nixon and “Operation Intercept”

In the fall of 1969, President Nixon attempted to use regulation of the border as a way of making good on his campaign promise to combat the drug issue through a project named “Operation Intercept.” Launched in 1969, the search and seizure operation was meant to reduce the entrance of marijuana and narcotics into the U.S. through smugglers at the border with the deployment of thousands of federal agents across the border. The operation ended after a month and was considered a huge failure – it cost taxpayers $30 million, did not not lead to any drug-busts, created major traffic jams along border states, and disrupted business on both sides of the border.

Additionally, the initiative created diplomatic tensions with Mexico, whose president, Diaz Ordaz, was blindsided by Intercept. One Mexican businessman, quoted in an October New York Times article, denounced the operation as a "a spectacular stunt which gives the absurd idea that everyone in Mexico is a suspected drug trafficker." Through trying to blame drug usage in the United States on smugglers at the U.S.-Mexico borer, Nixon created tension with Mexico and perpetuated untruths about border crossers being drug-dealers.

Clinton and the Border Patrol Strategic Plan of 1994

While Richard Nixon used the border as a way to frame his War on Drugs, the Clinton Administration put in place a series of initiatives as a part of the Border Patrol Strategic Plan of 1994 that had the intentions of stopping both the entrance of drugs and immigrants into the United States. Responding to complaints from border state politicians that undocumented immigrants were draining the welfare state and this was angering American taxpayers and voters, the Clinton Administration put in place a $540 million initiative, spearheaded by the attorney general, on reforming border policy and security. And in the efforts perceived to “secure” America’s border, immigrants were misrepresented as burdens on the state.

Three main parts of this initiative were “Operation Gatekeeper” in California, Operation “Hold-the-Line” in Texas and “Operation Safeguard” in Arizona, which were all programs put in place to build physical barriers and increase Border Control security in areas in the three states where border-crossing was known to be frequent. The implementation of these operations led to a decrease in crossings at the sites where the reforms were implemented, but at the same time led to border crossings in different areas and pushed border-crossers to geographies harder to travel, leading to increased deaths in attempted border-crossing.

Bush and the Secure Fence Act of 2006

Building off of policies set in place in by previous administrations, George W. Bush made his own attempt to tie his administration to the efforts to regulate the border through the ratification of the Secure Fence Act of 2006. The act, signed into law into October, called for the building of about 700 miles of double-sided steel fencing along various parts of the border bolstered by stadium lighting and video cameras. The act angered Mexican politicians, with the outgoing president, Vicente Fox, calling its passage "shameful," and the incoming president Felipe Calderon remarking comparing the future fence to the "grave mistake" that was the Berlin Wall. 

The Bush administration touted the act as a part of the administration's commitment to reforming America's overall immigration system. But in the actual building of the proposed fence that came in the next two years, the visions outline in the Secure Fence Act were not fully realized and some of the ambitions for stretches of double-sided steel fencing were reduced to the installation of barbed wire fencing. Nevertheless, the Act is just as important for the way in which it demonized border crossers as the actualization of its mandates. 

Sources: 

Berg, Nate. “The Evolving Fence at the U.S.-Mexico Border.” City Lab. December 5, 2011. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2011/12/evolving-fence-us-mexico-border/635/.

Cromer, Alison. “Brief History: A Timeline of the U.S. Border Wall.” Worldstir. January 28, 2017.  http://www.worldstir.com/history-u-s-mexico-border-wall/.

Drummond Ayres Jr., B. “Stepped-Up Border Patols Halve Unlawful Crossings.” New York Times. December 13, 1994. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/13/us/stepped-up-border-patrols-halve-unlawful-crossings.html.

Garfield, Leanna. "29 Photos that show the US-Mexico Border's Evolution over 100 Years." Business Insider. http://www.businessinsider.com/us-mexico-border-history-photos-2017-4#in-1994-the-first-national-border-patrol-strategic-plan-was-developed-in-response-to-a-perception-among-some-americans-that-undocumented-immigrants-and-drug-dealers-were-crossing-the-us-mexico-border-it-included-more-aggressive-prosecution-of-people-trying-to-cross-illegally-11.

Jesse Finance. Bill Clinton 1995 State of the Union immigration comments.” Published on August 26, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3yesvvYEvs.

Mydans, Seth. “Clampdown at Border is Hailed as Success.” New York Times. September 28, 1995. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/28/us/clampdown-at-border-is-hailed-as-success.html.

Rubio, Keiti. “Trump plans to expand decades-long trend of border militarization.” Liveration. March 11, 2018. https://www.liberationnews.org/trump-plans-to-expand-decades-long-trend-of-border-militarization/.

Smith, Laura. "How Nixon used the U.S.-Mexico drug trade to demonize activists and African Americans." Timeline. January 12, 2018. https://timeline.com/how-nixon-used-the-u-s-mexico-drug-trade-to-demonize-activists-and-african-americans-d2872e0ed980.