Professor Douglas Massey On Immigration & Border Security

Op-Ed: The Wall That Keeps Illegal Workers In

THE Mexican-American border is not now and never has been out of control. The rate of undocumented migration, adjusted for population growth, to the United States has not increased in 20 years. That is, from 1980 to 2004 the annual likelihood that a Mexican will make his first illegal trip to the United States has remained at about 1 in 100.

What has changed are the locations and visibility of border crossings. And that shift, more than anything, has given the public undue fears about waves of Mexican workers trying to flood into America.

Until the 1990's, the vast majority of undocumented Mexicans entered through either El Paso or San Diego. El Paso has around 700,000 residents and is 78 percent Hispanic, whereas San Diego County has three million residents and is 27 percent Hispanic. Thus the daily passage of even thousands of Mexicans through these metropolitan areas was not very visible or disruptive.

While I think there is some validity to the idea that points of entry have changed and the visibility of the immigration issue has increased, I disagree with the statement that our borders are not now out-of-control. We started losing control of our borders, especially our ports, airports and our Mexican border with the wave of drug smuggling that began in the mid-to-late 1960s. Our risks when the issue was drug smuggling were relatively small in terms of military invasion or terrorism... although there were health, life and moral risks with the drugs.

But, somewhere in the 1970s we began to see a rise in the willingness of the world's unhappy folks to use terrorism to get attention. While the US has been relatively safer than most of the rest of the world, we have seen our share of terrorist activities. The events of 9-11 just brought that reality back to roost. We have never really prepared for terrorism in this country. In 1993 we got a whiff of terrorism with the first attack on the World Trade Center, but even then we ignored the reality.

But even after the events of 9-11 we are largely ignoring those realities. The bush gang is chasing ghosts and distracting us from the fact that we are wide open for the next attack... and illegally tapping phones, cell phones and e-mail will do nothing to prevent, intervene or catch the terrorism/terrorists.

This all changed in 1992 when the Border Patrol built a steel fence south of San Diego from the Pacific Ocean to the port of entry at San Ysidro, Calif., where Interstate 5 crosses into Mexico. This fence, and the stationing of officers and equipment behind it, blocked one of the busiest illicit crossing routes and channeled migrants toward the San Ysidro entry station, where their numbers rapidly built up to impossible levels.
Every day the same episode unfolded: the crowd swelled to a critical threshold, whereupon many migrants made what the local press called "banzai runs" into the United States, darting through traffic on the Interstate and clambering over cars.

Waiting nearby were Border Patrol officers, there not to arrest the migrants but to capture the mayhem on video, which was later edited into an agency documentary. Although nothing had changed except the site of border crossings, the video gave the impression that the border was overwhelmed by a rising tide of undocumented migrants.

Which only proves that we need to layer our border security, starting with the simplest, low-tech measures first. It is not surveillance technology, but fences, personnel and common sense that should be our first security layer, and our first line of defense.

In response to the ensuing public uproar, the policy of tougher border enforcement was expanded to all of the San Diego and El Paso area in 1993 and 1994. So migrants began going to more remote locations along the border in Arizona. In 1989, two thirds of undocumented migrants came in through El Paso or San Diego; but by 2004 two-thirds crossed somewhere else. (My statistics on Mexican immigration come from a study I have been undertaking with financing from the National Institutes of Health since 1982.)

Unlike the old crossing sites, these new locations were sparsely settled, so the sudden appearance of thousands of Mexicans attracted considerable attention and understandably generated much agitation locally. Perceptions of a breakdown at the border were heightened by news reports of rising deaths among migrants; by redirecting flows into harsh, remote terrain the United States tripled the death rate during border crossing.

These statements only illustrate my point about common sense... those seeking to enter the US illegally will do so at the weakest points in our border defenses... common sense. Even my old football coach was on to this type of revolutionary idea... He used to say, "Run where they ain't!"

Less well known is that American policies also reduced the rate of apprehension, because those remote sectors of the border had fewer Border Patrol officers. My research found that during the 1980's, the probability that an undocumented migrant would be apprehended while crossing stood at around 33 percent; by 2000 it was at 10 percent, despite increases in federal spending on border enforcement.

The increased spending was on technology rather than personnel and barriers to crossing... A clear lack of common sense.

Naturally, public perceptions of chaos on the border prompted more calls for enforcement and the hardening strategy was extended to other sectors. The number of Border Patrol officers increased from around 2,500 in the early 1980's to around 12,000 today, and the agency's annual budget rose to $1.6 billion from $200 million. The boundary between Mexico and the United States has become perhaps the most militarized frontier between two nations at peace anywhere in the world.

While we are not at war with Mexico, we have had a tremultuous relationship with them over the past 4-5 decades. The level of corruption and drug involvement within their government and business institutions has demonstrated that they were more or less unreliable. The only real law enforcement efforts we have consistently seen is in the border towns where arresting unruly Americans visiting strip clubs, pharmacies and inexpensive bars has proven profitable... Tiajuana, Juarez and other border towns have made a bundle of revenue enforcing Mexican law on unsuspecting, or completely inebbriated, Americans. This is not to say that these Americans did not often contribute to the events leading to the arrests, but the system of justice in Mexico has a distinct preference of not giving Americans a fair shake in the border towns.

Although border militarization had little effect on the probability of Mexicans migrating illegally, it did reduce the likelihood that they would return to their homeland. America's tougher line roughly tripled the average cost of getting across the border illegally; thus Mexicans who had run the gantlet at the border were more likely to hunker down and stay in the United States. My study has shown that in the early 1980's, about half of all undocumented Mexicans returned home within 12 months of entry, but by 2000 the rate of return migration stood at just 25 percent.

The real point is that if they went through a legal entry process they could stay or leave as they desired... and this would not be a problem.

The United States is now locked into a perverse cycle whereby additional border enforcement further decreases the rate of return migration, which accelerates undocumented population growth, which brings calls for harsher enforcement.

Assumption of facts not in evidence. While the study may show some correlation to the dynamics Professor Massey discusses, there is no link to causality. Mexicans and others enetering the US illegally may be staying longer, but there may be hundreds of reasons for them to stay... including adverse conditions in Mexico, which has gone through cycles of economic and political strife many times in the last 5 decades.

The only thing we have to show for two decades of border militarization is a larger undocumented population than we would otherwise have, a rising number of Mexicans dying while trying to cross, and a growing burden on taxpayers for enforcement that is counterproductive.

A conclusion that may or may not be related to increased "militarization." However, I will point out that by international standards, we have the least number of border guards, military sentries and inspectors in our airports, ports and borders. During one of my trips overseas I entered an airport in the Netherlands, another in Jordan and another in Bahrain... all of them had border patrol, immigration, police and/or military members armed to the teeth patroling the passage ways, the check in counters, customs and immigation stations, as well as boarding and baggage areas. On the way back, there were so many security folks and checkpoints at Heathrow that it made me dizzy. In American airports there are barely enough cops to respond to a drunk and disorderly person at one of the ubiquitous bars.

Even ports are more secure. In Bahrain, I went out for a boat ride. On the way in we were stopped twice by the shore defense patrol, even though we had Bahrain registration and flew a Bahraini flag. In the US I have traveled by boat to Mexico and Canada and had to go find the local harbor master to complete a landing card. Go figure.

We need an immigration policy that seeks to manage the cross-border flows of people that are inevitable in a global economy, not to repress them through unilateral police actions.

On this point I totally agree... We need to manage our borders for safety and controlled flows of people, goods and cargo... not become entrenched xenophobes that are so paranoid that we bottleneck the world.