Prevention Through Deterrence is a set of policies instituted by the United States with the intent to deter the illegal crossing of its southern border with Mexico. First introduced in a document entitled "Border Patrol Strategic Plan of 1994 and Beyond", this policy has since been used to police high-traffic areas of the

Mexico–United States border The Mexico–United States border ( es, frontera Estados Unidos–México) is an international border separating Mexico and the United States, extending from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. The border traver ...

. Since its institution an estimated 10,000 migrants passing through Mexico have died in an attempt to cross through the

Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert ( es, Desierto de Sonora) is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States (in Arizona ...

into the United States. Mexico's

Secretariat of Foreign Affairs The Mexican Secretariat of Foreign Affairs ( es, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, ''SRE'', lit: Secretariat of External Relations) is the government department responsible for Mexico's foreign affairs. Mexico currently has 80 embassies, 3 ...

places the number of deaths at roughly 450 per year (including migrant deaths on both the US and Mexican territory).

History

The United States implemented "Prevention through Deterrence" in the 1990s when immigrants crossing the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

from

Reynosa, Mexico Reynosa () is a border city in the northern part of the state of Tamaulipas, in Mexico. It is also the municipal seat of Reynosa Municipality. The city is located on the southern bank of the Rio Grande in the international Reynosa–McAllen Met ...

attracted the media's attention pressuring immigration officials and politicians to create a new enforcement policy. The idea is to redirect the routes of the migrants into the

to discourage migrants from crossing. The

United States Government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

relies on the environment of the Sonoran Desert to deter these migrants without much help from the border enforcement agency.

Previous strategies used by the United States

Operation Blockade

Operation Blockade occurred from September 19, 1993, through October 2, 1993. Border Patrol agents were deployed along the 20 mile segment of the border "on an around-the clock basis and with repairs to the border fence in downtown El Paso area". Although the blockade ended on October 2, 1993, on September 24, 1993, Border Patrol announced that the operation "will continue indefinitely". The impact of the operation was seen immediately, because the usual level of attempted entry and arrest declined. The intention was to shift the traffic away from the city and "put igrantsout in areas where they’re on order Patrol’sturf". This approach soon evolved into the policy of Prevention through Deterrence.

Chinese Exclusions Act of 1882

The Chinese Exclusions Act of 1882 was a federal statute that prohibited Chinese laborers from entering and re-entering the United States. When Chinese laborers were denied entrance they would enter the United States illegally through the southern border with Mexico. According to

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

Jason De León, it was during the implementation of the Act that an early application of prevention through deterrence by the immigration agents occurred. De León points out that in order to deter more immigrants from crossing, patrol officers only apprehended immigrants on established routes where they had access to resources; this forced immigrants into more rural areas with less resources. Scholars state, "from their earliest work yenforcing the Chinese Exclusion Acts nacted in 1882 immigration authorities

ave ''Alta Velocidad Española'' (''AVE'') is a service of high-speed rail in Spain operated by Renfe, the Spanish national railway company, at speeds of up to . As of December 2021, the Spanish high-speed rail network, on part of which the AVE s ...

discovered that the desert and mountain wilderness anbe made effective allies in the fight against undocumented entry".

Debates

Measurement

The effect of prevention through deterrence is measured in different ways. The U.S. government can use the number of immigrant apprehensions to evaluate prevention through deterrence but, this does not measure how many migrants elude border patrol or how many migrants are dying at the southern border. A 1997 report by the

Government Accountability Office The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is a legislative branch government agency that provides auditing, evaluative, and investigative services for the United States Congress. It is the supreme audit institution of the federal govern ...

did use the immigrant death toll to measure the effect of prevention through deterrence. The

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

also publishes the number of migrant deaths; however, according to De León, it is the lowest estimate.

Praise

The goals of the Strategic Plan of 1994, as stated by border patrol, were not only to slow the number of migrants crossing the southern border, but to promote confidence in the United States' ability to protect that border. By apprehending more undocumented immigrants using prevention through deterrence, border patrol also wanted to "protect the immigration heritage" that serves as the foundation of the United States today. De León points out that by using terms like "tactical advantage" and "deterring", government documents format prevention through deterrence as a humane but powerful strategy.

Criticism

According to De León, there is a "war on non-citizens" at the U.S.–Mexican border and the primary weapon used by the U.S. is prevention through deterrence, which shifts the blame of migrant deaths from the government to the environment. Necroviolence, a term coined by De León, is the intentionally "offensive, sacrilegious, or inhumane" treatment of a deceased individual as perceived by the actor or the culture of the victim. De León applies necroviolence to prevention through deterrence through the effect the environment has on deceased individuals. De León also believes that the fear of necroviolence not only serves as a way to prevent more immigrants from crossing the border, but by condemning individuals to a clandestine death they, and the people who knew them, are stripped of spiritual and emotional closure.

Shaping history

According to De León, the U.S. government does not acknowledge the part it plays in the increase of migrant deaths at the southern border; however, over the past 20 years the United States government has been collecting materials left behind by undocumented immigrants. Therefore, artifacts are no longer available for scholars like De León to study. As

Paul Farmer Paul Edward Farmer (October 26, 1959 – February 21, 2022) was an American medical anthropology, medical anthropologist and physician. Farmer held an MD and PhD from Harvard University, where he was a Harvard University Professor, University ...

pointed out, this is a technique used by authoritative structures to establish a particular historical account of an event.

Locations

Using the environment

U.S. border patrol uses the environment to execute the prevention through deterrence strategy. For example, features of the terrain, such as bodies of water, mountains, valleys, and extreme temperatures, are "natural barriers", for individuals crossing the border. To use the uninhabited environment in prevention through deterrence, border patrol increased surveillance in cities along the southern border, which pushed migrant entry points into rural areas.

The Americas

The idea of Prevention Through Deterrence stemmed at the border between the United States and Mexico. This area is called the

; it is located in Arizona, which is known as an inhospitable area. Many determined migrants also chose to cross the

Río Bravo The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

which separates northeast Mexico from Texas because this area is known to have less border security. Migrants from Central America have used the means of the

in order to cross the border as well. Over 22 years (from 1990 to 2012), 2,238 migrant bodies were found in

Pima County, Arizona Pima County ( ) is a county in the south central region of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,043,433, making it Arizona's second-most populous county. The county seat is Tucson, where most of the population ...

, and 1,813 bodies, over half of those recovered, died from exposure. However, these statistics only include the migrants' bodies that were recovered and only represent a small portion of the border.

References

{{reflist Anti-immigration politics in the United States Mexico–United States border