In 1993, the United States Border Patrol initiated a strategy to curb undocumented migration into the United States across the border with Mexico. Known as the Southwest Border Strategy, it aimed to effectively seal off urban areas, under the logic that migrants would not risk their lives to enter the United States.

Ten years after this policy began, the consequences are clear. Migrants do risk their lives to find work in the United States. Because urban areas are now sealed, migrants are forced to travel through remote and dangerous stretches of desert that kills hundreds of people a year. Since 2000, the Border Patrol has documented 1704 migrant deaths to date – a staggering number for 4 ½ years. This does not include migrants whose bodies have not been found.

The Southwest Border Strategy has dramatically increased the resources going to the Border Patrol, yet migration to the United States has not decreased as a result. Since 1993, the number of Border Patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border has more than doubled– there are now more than 9,500 agents patrolling 2,000 miles of border. That’s five agents per mile. This summer, more than 2000 agents will patrol Arizona - one agent for every 1000 feet of border. The border patrol has also built over 78 miles of fencing in urban areas across the southwest border at a cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Despite these resources, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now the Bureau of Immigration and Citizenship Services ) has acknowledged that approximately 75,000 more undocumented migrants entered the U.S. per year between 1990 and 1999 than they originally estimated. Current estimates put the number of unauthorized entries at over 350,000 per year.

Current Border Patrol policies along the southwest border are untenable. They have failed in their mission, and the only result of increased Border Patrol surveillance is the deaths of thousands of people. Last year, Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) acknowledged that 99% of the people crossing the Southwest border are not a threat to national security. He has acknowledged, as many are beginning to do, that the only way to reduce undocumented migration is to reform our immigration system. These reforms will also reduce the number of migrant deaths each year by providing workers with a legal way on entry in to the U.S.

In addition to a reform of our immigration policies, border security needs to be reoriented from a policy focused on deterring migrants to one focused on terrorism. The strategies, tools, and resources going to border security do not address this problem in an adequate way. Rather than continuing to reinforce our current system, the Border Patrol needs to devise a new strategy that can address this mission, and reorganize its use of staffing, technology, and infrastructure to meet this new challenge.

We hope that the information that we provide to you over the course of the summer will help you to understand the tragic costs of the failed Southwest Border Strategy and provide you with the resources necessary to work on appropriate solutions.