Ella | 16.05.2006 05:47

Border communities are united in their opposition to the Goode Amendment, and fear that the placement of National Guard troops on the border with Mexico will further exacerbate the state-of siege mentality that has extended over the region since militarization of the region began, in the name of immigration enforcement and the war on drugs, over a decade ago. Currently, border communities face arbitrary detentions and arrests by the Border Patrol, racial profiling is rampant in Latino neighborhoods, the presence of military vehicles and infrastructure are pervasive, and the use of deadly force by Border Patrol agents claims innocent lives each year.

See also: Bush sending thousands of National Guard troops to Mexican border | No Troops at the Border!

US-Mexico Border - On Thursday the House of Representatives approved a measure to authorize the Secretary of Defense to place military troops along the southern U.S. border. Known as the Goode Amendment for its sponsor Virgil Goode (R-VA), it was attached to the Defense Department FY2007 Authorization bill. Anonymous sources also revealed a Bush Administration request for the Pentagon to investigate plans to send military troops on the border. It is speculated that Bush may announce this new proposal during his Monday evening speech.

Border communities are united in their opposition to the Goode Amendment, and fear that the placement of National Guard troops on the border with Mexico will further exacerbate the state-of siege mentality that has extended over the region since militarization of the region began, in the name of immigration enforcement and the war on drugs, over a decade ago. Currently, border communities face arbitrary detentions and arrests by the Border Patrol, racial profiling is rampant in Latino neighborhoods, the presence of military vehicles and infrastructure are pervasive, and the use of deadly force by Border Patrol agents claims innocent lives each year.

The border is often referred to as "porous", implying that it is a wide-open, uninhabited region. Yet, proposals to further militarize the region ignore major population centers in the region such as San Diego, El Paso, Brownsville, and many others. Sending the National Guard to patrol these areas will impact the six million people that call the US-Mexican border home.

"Border communities are being used as political pawns for politicians using 'get-tough on the border' policies to bolster their election year approval ratings," explains Jennifer Allen, director of the Arizona-based Border Action Network.

"We believe that we, as the people that live here, know the reality better than those in Washington. We should have a voice in the policies that impact our daily lives. We reject the placement of the National Guard along the border, and strongly feel it would intimidate law-abiding residents of our communities, creating a climate of fear. In the name of border security and homeland security, the Bush Administration is making border communities more insecure," continues Allen.

During the Civil War Reconstruction era, Congress approved the Posse Comitatus Act, preventing the use of U.S. military on domestic soil. Over the last twenty years, Congress has been whittling away at the Act as they have approved greater military-style enforcement measures on the border.

With the 1994 implementation of the Border Patrol's Southwest Border Strategy, the border has been converted into a low-intensity conflict zone with increasing migrant death tolls every year. Nearly 10,000 Border Patrol agents are stationed in the region. Fifteen foot tall solid metal walls divide U.S. and Mexican border towns. Underground surveillance devices and thirty foot tall camera towers are connected to observation rooms filled with monitors. Military equipment, such as Kiowa and Apache helicopters and humvees as well as military training in interrogation tactics have all been incorporated into border enforcement agencies' routines.

Border and immigrant community groups have been rallying for what they call "alternative guidelines for border enforcement". This March, a delegation of 300 community members traveled to D.C. to talk with every Senate office and present recommendations for border security that upholds civil and human rights.

"As border communities, we need to be considered part of the solution, not treated as the enemy," adds Fernando Garcia, director of the Border Network for Human Rights based in Texas and New Mexico.

"We will all lose if the Administration and the Congress focuses on enforcement-only measures and continues to use our backyards as their political playground."

"Whether we have five Border Patrol agents or fifty thousand troops, there must be mechanisms for accountability, ongoing training and certification in human and civil rights, credible and transparent complaint processes, consultations with communities, and compliance with environmental protections" concludes Garcia.

Military operations are not new to the border region. Currently, Northern Command, Joint Task Force North and the National Guard have limited missions on the border.

Critics of these operations say that the military is not trained to be operating in the backyards of U.S. communities and point to the 1997 shooting death of a Texas high school student, Ezequiel Hernandez, by a Marine operation while herding his family's goats. The Marines determined that the 17-year old boy fit the profile of a drug smuggler and shot him. Shortly after the incident, the military's role on the border was suspended.

"When policing is done by soldiers, our communities become the enemy. Ezequiel Hernandez's case proves this. There was, and obviously still are, good reasons the Posse Comitatus Act was passed 150 years ago," said Pedro Rios, interim co-director of the San Diego office of the American Friends Service Committee.

"The U.S. Border Patrol struggles with issues of accountability to constitutional rights, a lack of transparent complaint processes and insufficient community security. Placing soldiers that are not trained in immigration or civil and human rights in our backyard will only exacerbate an already tense situation," elaborates Rios.

The Goode Amendment makes no provisions for additional accountability of forces at the US-Mexico border. Rather, it continues the dangerous trend of creating zones of low-intensity conflict on American soil. We strongly urge the U.S. Senate to reject this approach to border security, and call on all political leaders in Washington to discard policies that further militarize our border with Mexico and instead work for real solutions.

Another Tactic 16.05.2006 07:10 Big border Just another tactic to keep your mind off the war and keep the white people happy! Basim. Najjar I love america 16.05.2006 11:48 Cali i have been offered very lucrative pay to leave, but American rules, California especially. The majority of California's are anti-war, pro-environment, and very chilled dreamers, an artist's paradise. i wouldn't trade that for the world even with all the bull out of D.C. Cali is still the land of the free, two years ahead of Florida always- Vote for Barbara Boxer for president, then may America will get it! You cant live without us Hollywood teaches the world everything, 5th largest economy and still suffering, Like AL gore on snl California is the place where the wish is well. Come to California if you have a good story to tell, and money would help its expensive as well but worth every dollar to be alive in the true place, California style. and a correction for our state add, just being in Cali means you won the lottery. www.bdogmania.com Basim najjar So... 16.05.2006 18:05 What is the solution to the boarder? Before you even say it, an open boarder is out. The majority of the country is against it. So the question remains...what is the best solution? TellMe yo bassim 17.05.2006 02:45 yo bassim, you sure post some strange comments on this site. I don't really get it. sometimes they relate, sometimes they don't. are you just trying to promote your own site? sometimes they're funny, usualy they're just non-sequitors. but whatever. a mailman vision 17.05.2006 02:46 We urge you to support the Nine Points for Immigrant Rights, proposed by the Los Angeles March 25th Coalition: - No to the anti-immigrant HR4437 and any other "copycat" legislation from Congress - No to militarization of the border - No to criminalization of immigrant communities - No to the planned immigrant crackdown across the country - No to the guest worker program - Yes to amnesty for undocumented immigrants - Yes to immigrant family reunification - Yes to a humane path to citizenship - Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers march 25th coalition Overcoming la frontera of our minds 17.05.2006 08:00 La Frontera, or the border between Mexico and the US is an entity of the human imagination. No God, natural spirit entity or physical landmark really exists that justifies the so-called border wall region between the US and Mexico.. Centuries ago the indigenous ancestors of modern day Mexicans traveled for miles to the north and introduced maize (corn) to the indigenous peoples of the Mississippi Valley. Evidence for this transition exists at the Cahokia Mounds site in Illinois/Missouri.. "The Mississippian tradition was based, in part, on the introduction of new strains of maize (perhaps from Mexico, although some researchers have suggested maize may have diffused eastward from the agricultural Anasazi of New Mexico), perhaps as early as A.D. 800. Mexican beans were also added into the Mississippian diets by at least A.D. 1000, providing an important protein supplement as well as releasing populations from density constraints based on the availability of wild animal proteins." more on Cahokia;  http://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/mississ.html This from "Ethnocide by Exclusion" by Jack Forbes; "Mesoamerican influences in the present area of the United States are extremely ancient, going back at least to the appearance of maize, beans and squash horticulture, several thousands of years ago, but actually extending back to the period of 40,000-13,000 BP (before the present) when a prominent linguist, Dr. Johanna Nichol, argues that the ancestors of later Americans (except for Inuit-Aleut peoples) were living south of the great ice-sheets, mostly in Meso and South America. After the ice-melt began a great northward movement commenced, bring many of our American language families into the present area of the USA. But most of our great language groups still have speakers spread out from Montana to Meso-America, and from Wyoming and Idaho to Nicaragua." cont's @;  http://nas.ucdavis.edu/Forbes/Ethnocide_by_Exclusion.html The site "borderecoweb" mentioned in a comment above is primarily a government venture between the EPA (US) and SEMARNAP (Mexico), though some other non-governmental NGOs are also on board. They're not exactly Earth First!ers, though there are some weblinx with relevent info on ecological issues along the imaginary borderline..  http://www.borderecoweb.sdsu.edu/ Obviously the impact of Bush/Cheney regime's plan to militarize the border is going to have a worse impact than the already obstructive concrete wall on migratory animals like the Sonoran pronghorn antelope. These endangered species need to travel far and wide to obtain food and water in this desert ecosystem. Needless to say the presence of the frontera wall doesn't have them jumping for joy.. "A sharp population decline over the last year has left as few as 30 of the animals alive on their last piece of U.S. range in Arizona’s Sonoran desert. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls it a "red-alert situation" - yet the government agencies involved continue to allow harmful activities in Sonoran pronghorn habitat including: Public Lands Grazing, Military Activities, Roads and Habitat Fragmentation, U.S.- Mexico Border Activities" more info @;  http://www.defenders.org/wildlife/pronghorn/overview.html Other problems with property ownership and imaginary border concepts of division primarily found in the heads of Euro-american immigrants can be witnessed in the struggle over the community garden in South Central LA. Here a green gem of a community garden that provides biodiverse food plants for people and pollinators is under serious threat of destruction by developer Ralph Horowitz. This so-called property owner insists on an exorbinant amount of money from the community farm to prevent him from destroying the farm and building a drab, grey, dead warehouse over this once productive green oasis ecosystem.. "Known as the largest urban farm in the country, South Central Farm provides food and sustenance to some of the most underserved residents in Los Angeles. "The farm," says DiCaprio, "holds a remarkable array of biodiversity and, because of its size, functions as a carbon sink, a natural environment that stores more carbon than it releases into the atmosphere, and this helps reduce global warming. We have to start acknowledging that every action counts." " help save the sc community farm @;  http://www.southcentralfarmers.com/ The effects of globalization and Plan Puebla Panama on Mesoamerica made public by the beehive collective; What can one little ant do?  http://www.beehivecollective.org/ jackrabbit solutions and opinions 21.05.2006 17:52 I believe that the border must be controlled. The border should have been controlled 30 years ago, but they've decided that now is the time for re-election. The U.S. military should have been gaurding our borders a long time ago. It doesn't have to be a Berlin wall. I spent some time in Europe and when I was crossing borders from one country to the next I didn't hand my passport to some rent-a-cop with a GED, it was a man in military uniform holding an automatic weapon. I made it through easy enough. As a country we need to regroup. Stop this obsession with foreign problems and concentrate on our own problems. The government seems very short-sighted and doesn't want to commit to anything they can't half ass in a short amount of time. The illegal immigration problem must be solved slowly and deliberately. The first step is to militarize and take control of the border. Permanently. No stupid walls or fences, just constant military patrol. Add more border stations. If the military is on the border, they won't have to be stationed along the highway. They can be placed anywhere. Once the border is stabilized, we can start punishing the people who hire the undocumented immigrants. Make felons of them, place ridiculous taxes on them, whatever it takes to defer them from hiring illegaly. Then when all that is situated, you start weeding out the ones already here. Very, very slowly. If they're here, they're here. Let them be until they slip up. Give them the chance to become citizens or obtain the proper permits. If they are unwilling to do so, send them packing. Immigrants are like blood to this country. The more the better, but there are proper and respectful and safe ways of doing things. I think everyone would like to see these people stay where they are and fight to make thier homes better and not just flee from thier problems. We should be sending our engineers and teachers and whoever down there to support them where they are lacking. We should be working together and we should be respectful of our neighbors. timothy the wicked So My Satire is Stupid? 23.05.2006 05:54 Ok, you want a real solution for the border? shoot anybody who tries to cross, that would end the problem yesterday! Once people here that, they will not cross it with out the right papers! plus they have tunnels, that would be the best way to cross the border or go through Canada they don't check that one, sure we are not racist in America! www.bdogmania.com or the davinci code Basim Najjar