Production of State, Capital, and Citizenry: The Case of Operation Gatekeeper

GATEKEEPER IS A MULTIFACETED STATE OPERATION CONDUCTED ALONG A 66-MILE stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border -- much of it traceable by a winding 10-foot-high steel wall -- that starts at the Pacific Ocean and cuts eastward across mountainous terrain before running into California's Imperial Desert. At the operation's core are some 2,200 of the nation's 9,200 armed Border Patrol agents, who are equipped with an expansive arsenal of detection and surveillance technology, including a sophisticated computer system for identification of undocumented immigrants apprehended while attempting to gain unauthorized entry into the United States (Brady, 1998). Since being launched in 1994, the operation has dramatically increased the number of federal attorneys to prosecute and judges to hear immigration-related cases, and established new "port courts" to expedite such cases. It has also begun the construction of new jails and prisons and contracted with private prison corporations to detain immigrants who fall under the han d of the law. Along with similar operations -- Safeguard in Tucson, Hold the Line in El Paso -- Gatekeeper draws from a federally allocated fund of $4.3 billion (Cornelius, 2001), nearly three times greater than the $1.6 billion allocated in 1993 (Sanchez, 1996), and more than five times greater than the $807.8 million allocated in 1988 (Dunn, 1996). The operation has attracted a good deal of criticism. Many Republicans and conservative Democrats claim that the operation has not gone far enough. These critics argue that the continued presence of undocumented labor in the United States takes jobs away from U.S. citizens, depresses wages in sectors where undocumented labor is prevalent, and burdens state and local governments with education, health care, law enforcement, and other immigration-related expenditures. Emphasizing the magnitude of harm, they have argued for the following measures: a triple wall along the border, a computerized tracking system, reinforced with a tamper-resistant national identification card, and U.S. military and National Guard support for Border Patrol agents to make them genuinely effective. Though not necessarily embraced by all its supporters, there is also the claim that Gatekeeper's border control efforts are destined to fall short unless U.S. employers who break the law by hiring undocumented laborers are subjected to a ri gorous prosecution policy. Other critics, usually positioned outside the mainstream of institutional politics, point to the operation's failings on other grounds. Noting that Gatekeeper was launched just before President Bill Clinton's reelection bid and at a time when nativist, anti-immigrant sentiments were running high in California, these critics see an expensive smoke and mirror operation designed to convince citizens that the state is acting in the public interest while it is doing little to stop the ready supply of undocumented labor to U.S. employers. Despite the multibillion-dollar buildup of law enforcement personnel and technology along the border, undocumented laborers continue to stream into the U.S., where certainty of employment remains high and, because of the state's unwillingness to prosecute employers who hire them, the chances of detection and apprehension are low. In this view, the state is acting primarily as an agent of capital, maintaining the functional equation of low wages and high profit margins for employer s. Competing views of the state inform each critical view. One accords the state an autonomous status, with state agents granted considerable discretionary latitude in the ways they initiate and carry out policy. The other views the state as relatively determined due to its position within the economy, with its primary function being to protect the interests of capital. (1) At the same time, both views presuppose that the state acts upon specifiable intentions, and then argue that such intentions offer a basis for how state actions are best interpreted. …