Prevention Through Deterrence
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. Since its institution an estimated 10,000 migrants passing through Mexico have died in an attempt to cross through the Sonoran Desert into the United States. Mexico's Secretariat of Foreign Affairs 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 from Reynosa, Mexico 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 Sonoran Desert to discourage migrants from crossing. The United States Government 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 [migrants] out in areas where they ’re on [Border Patrol’s] turf". 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 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 [by] enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Acts [enacted in 1882], immigration authorities [have] discovered that the desert and mountain wilderness [can] be 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 did use the immigrant death toll to measure the effect of prevention through deterrence. The Department of Homeland Security 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 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 Sonoran Desert; it is located in Arizona, which is known as an inhospitable area. Many determined migrants also chose to cross the Río Bravo 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 Rio Grande 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, 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.