When migrants seeking a better life in the U.S. cross into the country, whether up against urban fencing or way out in the remote deserts of New Mexico or Arizona, they want to be apprehended by Border Patrol agents as quickly as possible. They want to begin the legal process of applying for asylum. They want to be rescued.
And who is it that’s responsible for all these rescues?
I keep thinking about the Border Patrol’s recruitment page with that heroic figure in the cowboy hat, patrolling the border for potential terrorists like a TSA officer who’s been transported into a Marlboro ad. The glamour of that image is obviously designed to attract would-be agents to the Border Patrol. But what sort of personality is that message going to attract, and is that personality well suited to the reality on the ground?
Here’s a glimpse of one agent’s personality and worldview in action on the riparian border of southern Texas (a few hundred miles removed from the remote rural stretches I’ve been discussing here in New Mexico).
‘Come On Down to the Rio Grande Valley. I’ll Show You Around.’
Would patrolling with the Border Patrol change your mind about the border?
By Mattathias Schwartz
The Intelligencer
JAN. 6, 2019
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/border-patrol-texas-immigration.html
[Agent Chris Cabrera] had been out of the service for just over a year when he chanced across a Border Patrol recruiter while shopping in a mall. The appeal of the new job was self-evident. “It’s like playing hide-and-go-seek, but you’re always ‘it,’ ” Cabrera said. “When it’s muddy, you get to go four-wheeling. You get to go to the range and shoot fancy guns.” […]
As we drove, Cabrera presented the basics of current immigration policy through the Border Patrol’s eyes. The border crossers fall into two groups. There are the so-called regulars, who make a covert circuit from Mexico into the U.S. and back, either for under-the-table work or to smuggle contraband; the regulars tend to try to evade detection. Then there are what they call the “OTMs,” short for “Other Than Mexicans,” who cross the border only once, with the goal of being taken into U.S. custody, where they can apply for asylum. […]
By 2016, the “Other Than Mexicans” accounted for more than half of all arrivals on the southern border. Many came seeking sanctuary from murder, rape, and the organized-crime networks that have made many parts of their countries unlivable. […]
The majority of asylum seekers — those who express a credible fear of returning to their own country and do not have outstanding deportation orders — are given a court date for their asylum claim and are then released, sometimes with an ankle monitor. The Border Patrol calls the practice of conditional release, which dates back to the 1950s, “catch and release.” Trump repeatedly tried and failed to make good on his campaign promise to end the policy, which, from Cabrera’s perspective, makes the border dangerously permeable, since any person with a credible asylum claim can stay. “They know there’s certain things they got to say in order to make it through our system,” Cabrera said. “The prospect of a guaranteed short-term legal stay in the U.S. while a claim is being processed encourages more people to come.” Judd has called this state of affairs “the main magnet” that draws undocumented immigrants to the border.
The policy also undermines the role of the Border Patrol, as defined by its official mission statement and numerous strategic documents that talk about the need to deter and prevent illegal entries. “We’re the only union that’s begging for more work” is how Cabrera put it. The agents want to be the gunslinging border cops, but the influx of asylum claims has made them more like crossing guards.