Mexican Border Wars: Overview

Introduction

The border between the United States and Mexico stretches nearly two thousand miles along the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Border conflicts between the two nations have been an issue since the drawing and redrawing of national boundaries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Texas broke away from Mexico in 1836 and was briefly a separate nation before being annexed by the United States in 1845; the Mexican-American War (1846–48) was fought between the two countries for control of the region. The United States was victorious, gaining not just Texas but the provinces of Alta California and Nuevo México, which now make up Southern California and the majority of New Mexico, respectively.

Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, relations between Mexico and the United States focused on immigration and labor issues, as Mexicans became a source of migrant labor in industries such as agriculture and construction. In the second half of the twentieth century, border problems focused on three main issues: immigration, drug trafficking, and national security.

Changes in US immigration policy and economic problems in Mexico led to an increase in the number of undocumented Mexican workers in the United States. Estimates place the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States, at approximately 10.9 million in 2014, according to a 2016 report by the Center for Migration Studies. The Pew Research Center estimated that there were 5.6 million unauthorized Mexican immigrants living in the United States in 2015 and 2016, representing a decline from 6.4 million in 2009. As trafficking of marijuana and narcotics from Mexico and other Latin American nations increased, diplomatic relations between the United States and Mexico focused on controlling the flow of drugs, weapons, and money across the border. Concerns about terrorism and border security in the United States prompted serious consideration of tighter border controls. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, violence along the border increased, leading to so-called border wars between Mexican drug cartels and the US and Mexican governments.

Understanding the Discussion

Circular Migration: The pattern of crossing into a foreign country for the purpose of work and returning home after seasonal work ends.

Illegal immigrants: Foreign-born people who are living in a country without proper immigration permission.

Maquiladoras: Factories on the Mexican side of the border where raw materials imported from the United States are assembled into finished products, which are then exported back to the United States.

Narco Trafficking: The cross-border trade of narcotics and other drugs.

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): An agreement implemented on January 1, 1994, that phased out tariffs and quotas for trade between the United States, Mexico, and Canada in order to facilitate cross-border movement of labor, goods, and services.

Undocumented Workers: Foreign-born people who are living and working in the United States without proper immigration or labor department permission.

History

Migration from Mexico into the United States for labor purposes has been an issue in intercountry relations for decades. Throughout the twentieth century, Mexican workers commonly migrated to the United States either as permanent immigrants or following a pattern of circular migration, staying each season to work in agriculture or construction and then returning home for the off season. Circular migrants typically received work visas, paid taxes in the United States, and returned home with earned income that fueled their local economies.

Circular migration was the most common immigration pattern for Mexican citizens coming to the United States until the 1980s, when tighter immigration laws led to an increase in undocumented Mexican workers, who often use false social security numbers to register for jobs. These undocumented workers pay into the US tax system but gain no benefits due to their illegal immigrant status.

As labor markets tightened in the United States, nongovernmental anti–illegal immigration groups sprung up along the US-Mexican border. Some civilian groups formed, such as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, that strongly oppose permitting undocumented Mexican workers from entering, living in, and gaining employment in the United States. Such groups claim that undocumented workers take jobs away from US citizens and that their dependents use public services, such as schools and medical facilities, at great cost to American taxpayers. These groups also contend that border security is compromised by undocumented immigrants. As a result, they actively attempt to contain illegal immigration, often imitating official US Border Patrol methods. Members of these groups have been criticized by immigrants’ rights groups for using paramilitary methods and threatening both documented and undocumented immigrants.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which many anti–illegal immigration groups oppose, led to an increase in Mexican immigration following its passage in 1994. Violence along the border increased as well. In the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez, which was once considered to be one the most dangerous places on earth, more than 1,400 women and girls were murdered between 1993 and 2013. Mexican drug cartels used the city, which is across the border from El Paso, Texas, as a base for smuggling drugs into the United States.

Drug trafficking across borders involves the transport of various drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, and often includes weapons trafficking as well. Mexico acts as a conduit for drugs into US markets, where demand for illegal drugs is strong. In turn, weapons flow from the United States into Mexico, where gun purchases are strictly and tightly regulated. A report published in the Atlantic in 2013 estimated that an average of 252,000 guns cross into Mexico from the United States each year. According to data from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, more than 73,000 guns that were seized in Mexico and submitted to the US authorities for tracing between 2009 and 2014 originated in the United States. Most of these guns are purchased legally in the United States and then smuggled into Mexico. US police agencies have stated that gun smuggling is fueling violent crime, often committed by cartel members, in Mexico. Organized crime–related violence declined from 2011 and 2014 but increased in 2015 and 2016.

With the drug trade grossing between $8 billion and $24 billion per year between the borders, the United States has turned to sophisticated computer surveillance of banks and foreign-exchange money-handling businesses to track large transfers of cash related to drugs, weapons, and human-trafficking operations. Well-funded drug cartels have destabilized regions of Mexico, threatening government control of large swaths of certain Mexican states such as Guerrero.

Mexican Border Wars Today

Border security and terrorism concerns increased dramatically after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Concerned that terrorists might use the Mexican border to gain access to the country, the US Department of Homeland Security began a multiyear program called the Secure Border Initiative (SBI), designed to reduce illegal immigration, reinforce infrastructure, and enforce internal US laws regarding immigration.

In 2006, Mexican president Felipe Calderón initiated a military and civil offensive against drug cartels along the border. The following year, Calderón and US president George W. Bush launched the Mérida Initiative, a three-year, $1.4 billion program to combat border violence and drug and weapons trafficking. Designed to provide helicopter surveillance, electronic monitoring, and long-term strategic planning, the plan gained congressional cooperation in the United States in 2008 and is administered by a combination of US and Mexican government security agencies. The initiative was renewed beyond its original three-year term, and as of fiscal year 2016, US Congress had appropriated more than $2.6 billion for the initiative.

In April 2009, Bush’s successor, US president Barack Obama, traveled to Mexico to discuss border violence and instability with Calderón. While there, he promised to push Congress to ratify the Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials, or CIFTA for short (from the convention’s original name, the Inter-American Convention against Illicit Firearms Trafficking in the Americas). The treaty was adopted by the Organization of American States, an international organization made up of thirty-four independent nations in the Americas (excluding Cuba), in 1997 and has since been ratified by all but three member states, the holdouts being the United States, Canada, and Jamaica. If ratified by Congress, it would help control the flow of assault weapons across borders.

In November 2014, Obama issued an executive order that would have granted work permits to unauthorized immigrants who met certain qualifications, thus deferring any threat of deportation for a period of three years. The legislation would have affected an estimated five million people. The US Supreme Court announced it would review the constitutionality of Obama’s order in 2016; however, following the court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court announced in June 2016 that it was deadlocked in the case challenging the Obama administration's immigration plan. The resultant 4–4 tie left in place an appeals court ruling that blocked the plan, called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents. The issues of immigration and the border between the United States and Mexico were major topics of discussion during the 2016 presidential election, with candidates such as Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, endorsing Obama’s executive order and the Republican nominee Donald Trump calling for mass deportations and extending the US-Mexico border wall.

After President Trump took office in 2017, the Trump administration issued new directives to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents saying that the US government will “no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.” This was a reversal of 2014 guidelines issued by the Obama administration, which placed the highest priority for deportations on gang members, felons, and those who posed security threats. The Trump administration also released memos directing officials to expand detention facilities to hold immigrants who are caught entering the United States. This announcement signaled a reversal of an Obama-era policy commonly referred to as “catch and release,” in which asylum seekers were not held in detention while waiting immigration decisions. Also in 2017, President Trumps budget proposal for fiscal year 2018 included $2.6 billion for border security, of which $1.6 billion was earmarked for extending the wall along the US-Mexican border. In March 2017, US representative Mike Rogers introduced a bill to Congress called the Border Wall Funding Act of 2017 that would place a 2 percent tax on all person-to-person wire transfers to Latin America and the Caribbean. The proposed bill would predominantely affect personal remittances to Mexico; business transfers would not be affected.

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