Activists Say 'Operation Gatekeeper's' Legacy Is Death, 25 Years After It Began

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's been credited with transforming the us Mexico border in San Diego and it's been denounced as the cause of thousands of migraine deaths over the years. The border security program called operation gatekeeper is marking its 25th anniversary this month. It was the beginning of our nation's recent focus on stopping immigration from Mexico. Critics of the measure gathered at Chicano park yesterday and KPBS reporter max Rivlin Nadler was there. He joins us now. Hi max. Hi. Give us some of the background on operation gatekeeper. It was launched October 1st, 1994 under president Clinton's administration. What was the immigration debate like back then Speaker 2: 00:42 in California at least it was very heated. You had then California governor and San Diego's own Pete Wilson and the passage or you know, the proposed passage of proposition one 87 which if we look back today was really kind of a precursor to the recent public charge rule, which you know, disqualifies people from getting citizenship if they apply for public assistance. In that case it was to ban people from getting social services at all or if they were undocumented. So on top of that, you had the massive economic disruption created by the North American free trade agreement. So this is on both sides of the border. But one of the things that happened under NAFTA was that you had a small Mexican farmers or even midsize Mexican farmers lose a lot of their business to American farmers. So you had entire sectors of the rural economy in Mexico suddenly out of work and looking North for economic opportunities. So they were heading North and unprecedented number. Speaker 1: 01:41 There were apparently hundreds of immigrants waiting to cross of lightly fenced border back in those days. Can you describe what that was like? Speaker 2: 01:50 So obviously I wasn't there, but the photos are pretty stunning in the recollections of people too, is that basically you have thousands of people waiting for dusk every night, and the border patrol without much of offense would really grab what people, they could apprehend the people that they could. They still need a staggering number of arrests. We're talking over 500,000 in a single year, but there were just simply not a lot of border patrol agents for the amount of people that were crossing each day. Now what changed under operation gatekeeper? So what changed under operation gatekeepers, you had more agents, uh, you know, right afterwards, uh, thousands of agents flooded into San Diego sector. You had more technology and you had more wall. Uh, you also had in 1994, which proved to be a really fateful year for the criminal justice system domestically and the immigration and border enforcement at large, you had one point $2 billion out allocated for border control. Speaker 2: 02:45 Um, and the agencies that would eventually become ice under the violent crime control and law enforcement act of 1994, uh, which a lot of people have looked back on as being really jump-starting, mass incarceration, uh, domestically operation gatekeeper also launched the career of venue S attorney for Southern district of California, Allen Burson, uh, who really focused on the prosecution of people for illegal entry as a deterrent. So that is, uh, 13, 25, but that's a criminal code. 1325 and criminal code 13, 26, which is illegal reentry, which basically criminalizes people for crossing the border and says, you know, if you do this multiple times or even one time, you will face time in federal prison, which before hadn't really been, um, in forced, at least in the Southern district of California. You also, uh, as part of that process had fingerprinting and bringing a lot more people into the criminal justice system who were, you know, before then being treated in the civil immigration system and did operation gatekeeper deter illegal immigration? Speaker 2: 03:49 It did in the San Diego sector. It did the border apprehensions nosedive to right after the beginning of operation gatekeeper. But what this happened, and as a lot of people pointed out yesterday, what happened was, um, these individuals who would cross in San Diego simply went elsewhere along the border. You know, the need was still there to get jobs in the U S to see family in the U S um, and, and to get around that. So they went too much further, more remote places along the border. Then what essentially we had in, in San Diego, which was, uh, you know, two cities of butting once in one another and that caused a real increase in the number of illegal crossers who died trying to get into the United States. Yeah, it is tough to put a number on how many people have died in the desert since the beginning of operation gatekeeper. Speaker 2: 04:40 Us border patrol has put the number at over 8,000 people. This is a number that, um, advocacy groups say would be on the low end. Um, and that it's probably a much more into the tens of thousands of people. Now, you mentioned Alan Burris and a former us attorney here in San Diego. He's quoted to bring this up to date. He's quoted in the San Diego union Tribune is saying the immigration issue now is not a broken border, but a broken asylum system because most detainees are not running away from border agents. Is that the case? Yes and no. I would say a, just from my own reporting that, you know, to separate the asylum system from actual border enforcement is a difficult distinction to make. If you're criminally prosecuting people who have come here to ask for asylum, well that's border enforcement and that's in the asylum system. These things are deeply intertwined. Speaker 2: 05:37 What we're seeing along the border today is a lot of money being spent on surveillance and enforcement and new technology that and of course the border wall itself. Uh, what you're seeing a lot less money spent on is the, um, resources that could process people who present at ports of entry for asylum. So taking these two things and saying they're separate issues to me, doesn't necessarily ring true. Activists at yesterday's press conference presented a different vision for the border. What would they like to see in their border communities moving forward? Well, one thing that they really wanted to make clear yesterday, and uh, this is a clip of Petro Rios from the American friends service committee. Speaker 3: 06:20 The legacy of operation gatekeeper has been one of death. It's been a legacy of trampoline on basic civil rights for border community residents. It's been a legacy that has permitted this current administration to capitalize on decades worth of militarization that has placed the lives of thousands, that risks, that has claimed the lives of conservative number of over 8,300 people. Speaker 2: 06:50 So what he's saying there is, you know, basically he gets at that human rights aren't being respected. So how do you respect human rights along the border in the eyes of these advocates? And that is going back to addressing what Allen Burson would say is the broken asylum system, but also, um, what they would say is just kind of the broken border control apparatus as it exists, which is that there needs to be far more resources sent to the border for people who have legitimate asylum claims for people who would like to migrate, uh, to reunite with their families, for people who are seeking better job opportunities, basically a much more holistic approach than one that has been championed by Allen Burson and others, which looks at a much more militarized response to, uh, what we saw at the border in the 90s and has kind of laid the foundation for the next 25 years in border enforcement nationwide. I've been speaking with KPBS reporter, max, Revlon, Nadler, and max. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 4: 07:48 [inaudible].