BORDER PATROL NATION A nation without borders is not a nation. Today, every country is making effort to secure its borders not only from terrorists, drugs and smuggling but also from illegal immigration. All these recurring activities have sparked the United States to secure its borders against illegal immigrants and terrorism by creating a special department named the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headed by the Secretary of Homeland Security. After the terrorist attack of 9/11, terrorism and illegal immigration were two striking issues for the DHS. To solve these issues, the Department of Homeland Security further created two immigration enforcement agencies: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Customs and …show more content…
The primary function of the Border Patrol Agency is "Line Watch"(web), which involves the apprehension of terrorists, smugglers and illegal people at the border. The book ‘Border Patrol nation’ by Tod Miller is a classic example of the Border patrol agency day to day activities and work culture. Tod Miller has researched and written about US-Mexican border issues for last 15 years. The book contains eleven chapters, which are well structured and inter related in respect to the arguments, evident and stories. This makes the book well …show more content…
Throughout the book, the author tried to portrays the CBP and ICE as feeding monsters, who always keep the detention center beds filled and reap the federal budget. The thesis revolves around the militarization of the Border Patrol Agency, detention, deportation, humiliation and harassment of illegal immigrants by the agency, erosion of civil liberties, NSA’s privacy violations and a careful research to expose a vast and booming billion dollars industry. He shows that how the entire country has become a militarized border zone, with consequences that affect us all. Tod Miller opens up hisbook by CBP’s involvement in Super Bowl security. This involvement reveals the consequences of hyper-security not only aimed at the order, but also in football fields and local community. The author reveals out the huge budgets spent on the border agency. From the chapter 1,2 and 8, he reports that since 2/11, the US government has spent around $791
In both the movie, La Misma Luna, and the newspaper series, Enrique’s Journey, migrants are faced with many issues. The most deadly and scarring issues all relate back to bandits, judicial police, and la migra or Mexican immigration officers. The problems that arise are serious to the point of rape, robbing, and beating. It is not easy crossing the border illegally and secretly, but the successful ones have an interesting or even traumatic story about how it worked for them.
A leading American historian on race, policing, immigration, and incarceration in the United States, Kelly Lytle Hernandez’s Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol tells the story of how Mexican immigrant workers emerged as the primary target of the United States Border Patrol and how, in the process, the United States Border Patrol shaped the history of race in the United States. Migra! also explores social history, including the dynamics of Anglo-American nativism, the power of national security, and labor-control interests of capitalistic development in the American southwest. In short, Migra! explains
Recently illegal immigration has become a very pressing issue among people. Many people around the borders are being greatly affected by the issue and think immediate action needs to be taken to put a stop to the issue. The Documentary Border War: Battle Over Illegal Immigration takes a stand on the issue using many examples of pathos, ethos, and logos to try and persuade people that illegal immigration is a very serious issue and we need to put a stop to it. This documentary follows the lives of people who have been affected by illegal immigration, and explains how they feel about the issue. Another way that people can look at the issue of illegal immigration is through the eyes of the immigrants, and the reasons why they might be trying migrate to another country. The documentary Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary focuses on the issue from this point of view. This documentary uses pathos and logos to show the lives and hardships of those people who are trying to migrate to a new country. Although Wetback used many examples of pathos and logos to show the struggles of the migrants, Border War did a better job showing pathos by following the lives of people who were affected by the illegal immigrants they were also very persuasive with ethos by following credible people.
...Territo, L., & Taylor, R. W. (2012). Intelligence, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. Police administration: structures, processes, and behavior (8th ed., pp. 90-99). Boston: Pearson.
In “The Border Patrol State” Leslie Silko makes accusations of the border patrol’s mistreatment of American citizens of Mexican decent, making the argument with almost evidence. Silko, a critically acclaimed poet, sees the border patrol as a governmental assembly addicted to interrogation, torture, and the murder of those they see fit.
As a law enforcement agency the TPS’ priorities are to enforce the law, the letter of the law is blind and does not care about one’s sitution, a crime is committed when the law is broken. The Toronto Police Service’s Board changed their policies to ignore one’s immigration status when an individual is contacted by or contacts police. However, in practice the TPS have ignored this policy, instead when an individual who is illegally in Canada has made contacted with police this information is transmitted to the Canada Border Services Agency. The author takes issue with this claiming that their ignorance of their policies is harmful for illegal immigrations. However, their practices are required to maintain law and order in our nation, our justice system is not here to protect the perpetuators of crime, it is to protect society and by reporting illegal immigrations to the CBSA the TPS is fulfilling their
In the words of Ronald Regan “A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.” Many feel that illegal immigration is a growing concern for our nation, and securing our borders is most so that we can protect our homeland and preserving our freedom. They say these Illegals take jobs and deny opportunities for American citizens who have made worked hard to gain citizenship in a legal way.
Dougherty, Jon E. 2004 “Illegal: The Imminent Threat Posed by Our Unsecured U.S.-Mexico Border” Publisher: Thomas Nelson.
I will start by saying I fully enjoyed this excerpt and was totally enthralled by Silko’s writing. Silko managed to beautifully blend together hard testimonies and statistics along with descriptive imagery and a touch of philosophical whimsy. With that out of the way, I will spend the rest of this discussion post on random observations since this thread does not seem to have a firm purpose like the Chapter 1 thread.
Vaughan, Jessica M. “Aliens Who Overstay Their Visas Are a Serious Security Threat.” Opposing Viewpoints: Immigration. Eds. David M. Haugen, Susan Musser and Kacy Lovelace. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2009. 182-193. Print.
The Mexican-American border barriers were originally built as part of a three-pronged approach to diminish illicit contraband, drug smuggling, and illegal immigrants. This operation would curtail drug transport routes from Central America. Three headquarters were established along the Unites States border: operation gatekeeper in California, Operation Hold-the-Line in Texas, and Operation Safeguard in Arizona. These strategically placed headquarters have done an outstanding job securing our borders the past decade, however with drug smuggling on the rise, they require much more support from the government. Regrettably, adversaries of the barriers claim that they are more of a political gambit to instigate foreign affairs and a complete waste of taxpayers’ money. These opponents see the United States-Mexico barrier as an unsuccessful deterrent to illegal immigrants and unwanted drugs that ultimately and inaptly endangers the security and wellbeing of immigrants seeking refuge in the States.
The study also took a close look at how the courts deal with the issue, the administrative interpretation of the law, and the application of the reform to be very critical and increasingly impossible. The author discovered that immigration reform has chronic problems, citizens’ disinterest to participate in the political process, government inefficacy, and centralized decision making away from the very communities imparted. The lack of enforcement is mounting pressure on states’ budgets (appropriation and allocations) of resources as the number of beneficiaries for social services increased. On the other hand, Dorsey and Diaz-Barriza (2007) studied President Barack Obama stands on immigration when he was then senator and compared them to conservative and liberal position. In the research, the author lamented that then senator Obama called for a comprehensive immigration reform that would deal with the issues of border security, employers sanction for hiring illegal individuals and a path to earned citizenship. Both sides agreed in part, but disagreed with the issue of path to citizenship which created gray lack. Today, the debate continues between the both political parties and the states leading the president executive action on immigration in recent
According to the author, border control, law enforcement and employers to police the workplace are good debated ideas in congress but all have flaws and even creating a National ID would be very costly. He claims that illegal immigrants work in places with
Immigration is closely intertwined with foreign policy and national security, with each acting upon and being influenced by the other. To advance national security, U.S. foreign policy has been used to stimulate or inhibit migratory movements. The historical lack of attention by foreign policy decision makers to immigration has resulted in unintended migration to the United States. Virtually every type of foreign policy tool—economic, military, trade, or propaganda— has been used at one time or another to respond to concerns arising from immigration. The perception of and response to immigration by U.S. policymakers is seen in the context of U.S. national security. (Reform September 1997)
Problems raised surround the border, the border conflicts, bring out the need of a border thinking. Because border has already imbued with oppositions, the interaction happened in the border is also problematic. Conflicts happen not only identity conflict but also classed, racial, language etc. Mignolo and Tlostanova argue that this kind of “thinking or theorizing emerges from and as a response to the violence (frontiers), modernity, and globalization that continues to be implemented on the assumption of the inferiority or devilish intentions of the Other and, therefore continues to justify oppression and exploitation as well as eradication of the difference” (206). Kanellos affirms that people who cross borders either physically or symbolically or even in both ways “construct more than one national identity at a time or deconstruct and reject them all” (34). In the process of constructing the identity,