On a hilly, bushy stretch along the Mexican border one recent Sunday evening, a U.S. Border Patrol agent encountered an illegal immigrant who began hurling stones at him. After the immigrant ignored warnings to stop, the agent fired at the man, killing him instantly.
It was the fourth confrontation between a Mexican and a Border Patrol agent in a week and the second fatality in as many days. In three other incidents, Border Patrol agents shot at a Mexican man, wounded a second man and killed another immigrant involved in an earlier stone-throwing melee.
As federal officials mark the fourth anniversary of their controversial effort to heighten security at the border, the shootings have revived a debate about whether the Operation Gatekeeper program in California is doing more harm than good.
Operation Gatekeeper has put hundreds of new agents along the 150-mile border between California and Mexico, boosting the ranks of federal officers to 2,230 from 996 in 1994. Federal officials also are expected to deploy thousands of new agents as well as military troops at the border over the next five years.
Border Patrol officials in San Diego assert the beefed-up security under Operation Gatekeeper has been successful in deterring hundreds of Mexicans from illegally crossing into California every day.
For example, the number of arrests at Imperial Beach, the busiest of eight stations at the border, dropped to about 70 in a 24-hour shift from 1,500 in a 10-hour shift before the start of Operation Gatekeeper.
Similar operations have been introduced in Arizona and Texas, efforts that have increased the total number of border patrol agents to 7,700 from 3,400.
The purpose of the program is to stem the flow of illegal crossings and drug smuggling by securing the border at heavily populated areas where immigrants could enter and blend in with little detection.
Human-rights activists have complained that the program forces immigrants to use riskier routes to elude capture. About 320 Mexicans, according to the activists, have died trying to cross deserts, mountains and other treacherous areas since Operation Gatekeeper began.
But the recent spate of shootings, they contend, highlights another set of problems. In its haste to boost personnel, human-rights workers allege, the Border Patrol has been less diligent about screening applicants and training and supervising new hires.
This, according to activists, has resulted in the abuse of immigrants by patrol officers and established a frontierlike mentality in which agents shoot first and ask questions later.
“Operation Gatekeeper is making a serious human-rights situation worse. (The federal government should) re-evaluate the human costs and what Operation Gatekeeper is doing to increase deaths at the border,” said Roberto Martinez, executive director of the San Diego office of the American Friends Service Committee, which has called on Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to halt the program.
“These agents are very aggressive, very violent,” Martinez added. “They don’t need to use deadly force for rock-throwing; they can look for alternatives. It’s senseless to have to shoot somebody.”
Border Patrol officials defend Operation Gatekeeper, saying violence and crime at the border have dramatically decreased since its introduction. Before Operation Gatekeeper, many stretches of the border were overrun by Mexican bandits who would rob, rape and murder immigrants entering the U.S.
Agents blame the shootings on the immigrants who, they say, have become much bolder in their attempts to cross the border. The Mexicans are having to wait longer periods, sometimes up to two months, to sneak across, building frustration. Moreover, the immigrants, some of whom pay smugglers $1,500 to get them over, are less willing to back down once confronted by agents.
“A lot of (the immigrants) are coached by smugglers to throw rocks to divert the attention of agents so that others can slip in. You have a dangerous situation with someone who is willing to do anything to get across,” said Salvador Zamora, supervising Border Patrol agent.
In recent months, Zamora added, several agents either have been shot at or wounded by snipers or seriously injured by stones hurled by immigrants. Agents often work alone in dark and desolate spots, he said, and need to be cautious about their safety.
“Our firearms policy is clear: When you, a partner or a third party is in danger of sustaining grievous bodily harm then you can use deadly force,” Zamora said.
In its midyear report issued last month, American Friends Service Committee documented 13 complaints this year from Mexicans and some Hispanics mistaken as Mexican nationals of verbal and physical abuse by Border Patrol agents.
The assaults, according to activists, spotlight deficiencies in the background checking and training processes. Too many unqualified individuals and even criminals, they assert, are slipping into the ranks.
Joseph Dassaro, vice president of the union representing Border Patrol agents in San Diego, agreed that screening was lacking. Last month, he posted on the union’s Web page this stinging complaint about the agency’s hiring practices: “We have recently hired known criminals, drug smugglers, gangbangers, people out of drug rehab . . . people who write on a 5th-grade level, and, yes, even illegal aliens.”
In an interview, Dassaro cited recent examples in which background checks and psychological exams failed to send up red flags about three recently hired agents. One agent was arrested for allegedly smuggling 550 pounds of marijuana across the border in his government vehicle; another was arrested on charges of raping a Mexican woman; a third was dismissed after it was discovered that he had been involved in a drug operation in New York.
“If (the Border Patrol) would have done a background check they would have found out something was wrong,” said Dassaro, who, unlike the activists, believes the background-check issue is unrelated to the shootings. “Any time you have this kind of exponential growth (of personnel), bad apples will slip through.”
Human-rights activists have called for the Border Patrol to tone down some of its tough tactics toward migrants.
Officials at the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation have complained that agents often provoke conflicts with the immigrants by pulling them off walls onto the U.S. side and arresting them after they have fled back to the Mexican side. These officials also criticize the shoot-to-kill policy for stone-throwing as being too drastic.
“For God’s sake, why aren’t (the agents) wearing protective gear so every rock is not life-threatening? Why are they blocking people from scrambling back to Mexico?” asked Claudia Smith, director of the foundation’s Border Project and a staff attorney.
For their part, officials at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which oversees the Border Patrol, say they are taking the complaints seriously.
Eyleen Schmidt, spokeswoman for the INS, said the agency is looking at strengthening the screening process. But she denied that training is lacking, saying Border Patrol agents receive more preparation than FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration recruits.
She said the INS is implementing several recommendations from a citizens advisory panel report last year that called for the Border Patrol to establish a complaint process in which migrants could report abuse by agents.
The INS has assembled “a working group to minimize rock-throwing,” Schmidt said. “We are looking for ways to better protect agents like retrofitting cars (against rocks) and using protective gear.”
