# Guardians at the Gate **URL:** **By** Justin Raimondo **Published:** June 1, 1980 --- “On January 31 of this year, Immigration and Naturalization Service agent Michael Kennedy, 24, was ordered held without bond by a U.S.” On January 31 of this year, Immigration and Naturalization Service agent Michael Kennedy, 24, was ordered held without bond by a U.S. magistrate. Kennedy, a security officer assigned to the INS border inspection station at San Ysidro, California, had been charged by the Justice Department with the rape and murder of a 19-year-old Mexican woman who was caught trying to enter the U.S. illegally. Maria Lopez de Felix, a resident of Tijuana, was discovered by immigration officials last November 25, hiding in the trunk of an automobile driven by her sister-in-law. Ms. Lopez was detained at San Ysidro, after which she agreed to return voluntarily to Mexico. Then, according to the _New York Times_: “Officer Kennedy allegedly escorted the woman into the pedestrian corridor leading back to Mexico, then led her through two gates and into the United States. Based on physical evidence found at the scene, the Justice Department has accused Mr. Kennedy of raping and strangling the woman in an abandoned customs building.” “According to \[San Diego U.S. Attorney Michael H.\] Walsh, Mr. Kennedy has been a suspect since last March in the murder of another Mexican woman near San Ysidro. That case is still under investigation, and no charges have been filed. \[emphasis added\]” Despite a plethora of liberal/environmentalist apologies for the INS—_The Golden Door: International Migration, Mexico, and the United States_, by Paul and Anne Erlich and Loy Bilderback, for example, says that “the \[Border\] Patrol is doing its job as best it can with a high degree of honesty”—it is really no longer possible to whitewash the agency’s sorry record of brutality, corruption, and bureaucratic empire-building. Add rape to all that, and quite possibly murder, and what have you got? Officer Kennedy was allowed to remain on duty at the border up until January 31st after having been under suspicion of murder for nearly a year. It is true that the INS is having trouble keeping personnel—but when it gets to the point that it recruits rapists and murderers to do its job, then maybe the job isn’t worth doing. When pressed for some excuse, of even the most perfunctory sort, to explain why they kept a suspected murderer on the Border Patrol payroll, officials of the General Services Administration declared that they were “looking into the matter.” Nor is this case unique. Last March, two undocumented workers were shot by a Border Patrol agent after he had arrested them thirty yards inside U.S. territory and handcuffed them together. One of his prisoners died shortly afterward. According to the _New York Times_ (8/25/79): > The Border Patrol said that the agent had acted in self-defense after the two men had tried to strangle him with the handcuffs that bound them. But the San Diego District Attorney investigated and found that the aliens had been shot while attempting to flee back to Mexico. The District Attorney declined to file charges, however, noting that the Border Patrol officer had been on duty “in a combat-zone atmosphere.” Nor has the United States Attorney in San Diego taken any action against any of the officers involved in such incidents, prompting several lawyers in the Federal Defender’s office to label the Justice Department “a washing machine from which allegations against the Border Patrol ‘come out clean.’” “A combat-zone atmosphere.” Here, at last, it is finally admitted: the U.S. government has declared war on Mexican-American immigrants, and is presently engaged in what is virtually a military campaign on the southern border. Donald Cameron, the Border Patrol chief at San Ysidro, California, calls this “the sixteen hottest miles of border in the world.” Herman Baca, a local Chicano activist, dubs the area “the Vietnam of the Southwest.” And the Indochinese analogy is not mere literary flourish. The shoe fits. Consider the following description of the routine of typical members of the Border Patrol: “They were not hurt, but others have been, and badly. One has a steel plate in his head, and there are places along the boundary where Mr. Munch is now afraid to drive, even though he is far from alone. Above him . . . helicopters, searchlights blazing and loudspeakers blaring the warning ‘go back,’ dip and wheel in the inky sky.” Meanwhile, “all across the hills behind him, other agents, many of them veterans of the Vietnam war, peer at the border through special night-vision scopes.” Why does this vignette of the Tijuana “combat zone” (which appeared under John Crewsdon’s byline in the 8/20/79 _New York Times_) sound like an account of the Tet offensive? Armed with high technology snooping devices perfected during the war in Vietnam, the Border Patrol is fighting a similar enemy in a similar way—and with similar results. The Indochinese analogy is both a prophecy and a warning—because, of course, we all remember who won the war there. ## Unholy alliance Of course, it would be impossible for the INS to continue fighting what amounts to a war on our southern border without broad-based support from significant power groups. In fact, a seemingly unlikely alliance of Big Labor, outright racists, and white middle-class “environmentalists” has been forged to keep immigration requirements stringent. The interests of these diverse groups intersect at a single point, in spite of their other differences: each member of this unsavory triumvirate has always fought to increase the role of government in society. Big Labor is on the decline in this country, and cannot therefore afford to be either magnanimous or enlightened. Organized labor as a percentage of the total work force has been in decline since the late ’40s and is going downhill fast. And despite the best efforts of union liberals, all attempts to change Big Labor’s steadfast opposition to a general amnesty for undocumented workers have failed—have in fact, produced the opposite result. On Monday, February 25, 1979, the AFL-CIO national convention reaffirmed labor’s traditional support for the INS’s ongoing war against so-called illegal aliens. A resolution urging amnesty for undocumented workers was overwhelmingly defeated—and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) bureaucrats who had authored it promptly turned around and voted against their own motion in the interest of unanimity. “Our original proposals may have been idealistic,” warbled Sol Chaiken, ILGWU president, “but as a pragmatist, I knew they could not be accepted.” Chaiken and his liberal friends also ended by voting with the majority in favor of penalties against employers who hire illegals, and for government-issued, “counterfeit-proof” worker identification cards similar to those issued to blacks by the South African government. Labor’s well-known concern over the “exploitation” of Mexican-Americans apparently does not prevent it from calling for such measures—and for the strengthening of the Border Patrol. Apparently, it is “exploitation” to employ the unemployed, but it’s o.k. to shut them out altogether. Labor’s argument that illegals take jobs away from Americans is a myth which serves no purpose other than to excuse the use of government force to maintain a permanent, largely white labor “aristocracy” in this country. At least half a dozen studies show that, far from being a burden, the “illegal alien problem” is in fact a windfall. Most of the undocumented workers in this country are young and highly productive Mexican-Americans whose health care, education, and other costs of rearing have been borne by Mexico. And as social scientist Wayne Cornelius of UC San Diego’s Center for Mexican-American Studies has said: “The significance of this windfall becomes more apparent when one considers that, as of 1977, the cost of preparing a U.S.-born man or In 1978 the rate for a first class smuggling job was $300, which included transportation of the client into the U.S. interior. Slip-ups, whether due to black marketeer dishonesty or the high technology of the INS, lead to thousands of arrests per year. Because the INS has the power to “arrest any alien or person believed to be an alien,” many arrests, even deportations, include Mexican-American citizens. woman for integration into the U.S. labor force was about $44,000.” These illegals pay millions into the Social Security trust fund which they will never collect; they also pay state income, sales, and property taxes for which they receive little or no benefits. The liberals have coined the phrase “undocumented worker”—but, given the facts, _undocumented taxpayer_ is a much more appropriate name. ## Racist stereotypes There is an overlap here between the arguments of Big Labor and the arguments of outright racists: the racist arguments in favor of immigration restrictions feed, in large part, on the same passions and misconceptions utilized by the labor aristocracy. The idea that Mexican immigrants in particular are a drain on the U.S. economy is central to the racist argument. Yet reference to the actual facts quickly dispels the untenable caricature of the “illegal alien welfare bum.” In San Diego county—the big entry point for most Mexican immigrants — a 1977-78 screening for welfare, Medi-Cal and food stamp recipients found 317 illegals in a caseload of 285,000. Only 9 percent of these had received public medical care; 2.8 percent had collected welfare payments; 1.6 percent had collected food stamps. Milton Friedman’s view — expressed in his recent PBS “Free to Choose” series — that unrestricted immigration is unthinkable until the welfare state is significantly reduced simply does not stand up to the test of reality. In fact, the illegals— due to a combination of caution and immigrant pride—view the welfare system with suspicion and contempt. The figures show that Friedman’s cost-benefit analysis is way off this time: a 1977 San Diego government task force estimates that illegals in that county pay a minimum of $98.8 million in taxes annually, while on the other hand a 1977 survey by the Human Resources Commission reports that the cost of all services for illegals totals only $2 million a year. The racist stereotype of the Mexican worker as “docile and desperate” — one who, in the words of AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, will “undercut the wages and working conditions of American workers” — is also utter nonsense. That characterization did fit the poor, defenseless “wetbacks” imported by the government-sponsored _bracero_ program, which brought in limited numbers of Mexican workers at fixed wages right after World War II, but the better educated, urbanized illegal of today will not accept just any job. According to Wayne Cornelius, “The demand for their labor is sufficiently high in most urban labor markets that they can, and do, change employers when they feel they are being exploited and abused.” (Cited by Lou Cannon: _The Guardian_, 8/26/79; p. 17) Of course, the real, un-abashed ugliness of openly racist sentiment is exemplified not by the AFL-CIO’s prettified racism, but by the successful efforts of Ku Klux Klan members to organize vigilantes, beginning in 1979, to patrol the U.S.-Mexican border. ## Zero Mexican-American growth However, the bulk of the pressure to further constrict the free flow of immigration comes neither from Big Labor nor from avowed racists, but from a source that is more subtle— and much more respectable. What is more respectable these days, than environmentalism? Yet no more formidable obstacle stands in the way of the young Mexican immigrant than the white, middle-class environmentalist movement. As the authors of _The Golden Door_ freely admit: “The very success of the zero population growth movement seems to carry with it the seeds of a movement to restrict immigration.” Carter administration consultant Philip Martin is even more straightforward: “Liberal environmentalists,” he says, “are the most powerful opponents of increased immigration today.” What the environmentalists hate is precisely what attracts illegals to this country in the first place—economic growth. In the _The Golden Door_, Stanford University biologist Paul Erlich, whose 1968 book _The Population Bomb_ helped launch the zero population growth movement, vividly describes his own dream of a pastoral, unchanging, “steady-state” world: > Suppose . . . that a combination of shortages and minidisasters fi- nally convinced everyone that trying to run the same collapsing economic machine ever faster will just not work. As a result, there might be a transition toward a steady-state or “spaceship” economy in which all nations adopted programs calling for highly efficient use of energy and materials, with energy supplies based mainly on the output of the sun . . . ecological restraints would finally be recognized as placing fundamental boundaries on human activities. In short, humanity would decide to live with nature rather than attempt to conquer it. Imagine further (as long as we are pipe dreaming) that all of these developments contributed to a trend toward equity in the world, and over-developed \[sic\] nations like the United States started to de- develop. Laws could be passed to encourage high standards of durability in consumer goods. . . . The activities of the petrochemical industry would also be reduced as the production of plastic junk and synthetic pesticides declined. As various anti-social activities such as freeway-building and pur- veying of junk food fell off, the United States might shift its human ingenuity and productivity toward conversion to a sustainable soci- ety. \[p.317, emphasis added\] This neo-feudalistic pipe dream of a solar-powered, “de-developed” America in which eating at McDonalds is an “antisocial” act has no use, and no room, for newcomers. The spirit of adventure, the pioneer mentality which built this country (and which continues to build it as new immigrants reach our shores) is anathema to the advocates of this profoundly pessimistic scenario—a scenario which is also a rationale for government intervention on an unprecedented scale. For as far as the advocates of this “steady-state” society are concerned, any sort of travel will threaten the “fragile ecological balance” of their new Eden. “It is even conceivable that nearly everyone would stay put,” say the authors of _The Golden Door_. “With the exception of people who moved for reasons relating to health, business, or family commitments, nearly everyone would be satisfied with their \[sic\] present locations.” (p. 319) This is a vision of “de-development” which has devolved right back to the feudal concept of the serf bound to the land. Yet the bogeyman of the population explosion, the real heart of the environmentalist argument, ignores the following facts: (1) Immigration accounts for less than 20 percent of U.S. population growth. (2) Most illegals have no intention of staying in the United States. According to figures compiled by the Center for Mexican-American Studies in San Diego — as well as a similar study done by the _Collegio_ in Mexico City—the vast majority of undocumented workers in the U.S. remain permanent residents of Mexico, while continuing to work in the U.S. seasonally. (3) The reproductive patterns of immigrant populations tend to approximate those of the host country very quickly. Thus, the Mexican birthrate of 6.3 children per family has Inflated figures on the numbers of aliens crossing the border each year are based on the INS’s L-213 forms, which are filled out for each apprehension of an illegal, every time the crew of a foreign ship overstays a visit, or when an INS official suspects the presence of an alien. That most illegals are not permanent residents is not considered. In fact, we do not have reliable statistics on illegal immigration. fallen off in the Chicano community in this country, and is now much closer to the American average of 2.3. The population explosion scenario is only a red herring, of course, a diversion away from the real soul of this kind of “environmentalism.” If you want to discover the real substance of the white, middle-class fear of a brown-skinned “invasion,” read this passage from _The Golden Door_: > If native Americans continue unrepentantly in their traditional “prosperity,” that is, a resource-gobbling, environment-destroying lifestyle, then America will continue to attract immigrants, legal and illegal, who will strive to do the same. If the past is any guide, most immigrants will sooner or later achieve a standard of living that is not significantly different from the native-born. After all, this is what attracts most immigrants in the first place. Thus, adding people to the U.S. population would increase the total American impact on global resources and environment…. Babies, after all, do not begin to have their full environmental impact until at least two decades after birth—when they begin to drive Cadillacs, build houses, eat steaks, or occupy seats on airliners. \[p. 325\] ready driving Cadillacs, building houses, eating steaks, and occupying seats on airliners will be permitted to do so. In the doomsday world of the ecofreaks, the desire to improve one’s lot is not a virtue, but a vice. Yet despite all the pious imprecations against prosperity and and “resource-gobbling,” nobody—especially not the authors of _The Golden Door_— expects the American people to give up the benefits of relative affluence and advanced technology. Unable to outlaw these things outright, all the environmentalists can succeed in doing is limiting the undeniable benefits of economic growth to a privileged, nearly all-white elite. By upholding complete stasis as a moral and political ideal, the “liberal” environmentalists have become the most conservative worshippers of the status quo. It is therefore not at all surprising that the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA) has joined with groups like the American Legion and the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as with various labor unions, in calling for stricter enforcement of the immigration laws. “Under the Carter administration the posture has essentially been ‘once you’re here, you’re safe,’” says Gerda Bikales, population program officer for the NPCA. “We think there should be much more meaningful enforcement of our present laws.” Thus, Mexican immigrants face not only the challenge of a new language, a new culture, and a new life; they also must come face to face with the well-organized, well-financed, and government-supported labor/racist/environmentalist alliance. This anti-immigrant coalition has, in government, an invaluable ally—government not only gives the coalition’s prejudices the force of law, it also helps to insure that public discussion of the immigration issue is dominated by hysterical anti-immigrant propaganda. ## Los mojados Even the most basic information concerning Mexican- American immigrants has been distorted—and, in some cases, invented—by the government. Even such a question as “How many illegals are there in the U.S.?” has been “answered” with careful attention to the interests of the INS and its apologists. On December 8, 1975, for example, the INS issued a news release (as part of then-Commissioner Leonard F. Chapman’s campaign to get more funding from Congress) which claimed that the number of illegals was increasing “by about 250,000 per year, or more.” The release also stated: “An earlier study done for INS by Lesko Associates, Inc., estimated the number of illegal aliens in the nation at eight million.” What was ignored by that news release was a letter by Richard G. Darman (author of an INS policy analysis upon which the release was based) to his employer, which stated the truth of the matter: “Currently available statistics do not permit reliable determination of the number of illegal aliens in the country, or of the percent of these in the labor market or on welfare….” The plain fact of the matter is that nobody knew then just how many illegal aliens were coming into the country—just as nobody knows now how many there are, for the simple reason that the illegal nature of this particular activity makes such accuracy impossible. There are really two questions involved here: How many are coming in? How many are here at any given time? “No one knows the answer to these questions,” says Erlich \& Co. in _The Golden Door_, “and no one is very close to finding out.” Yet the illegal alien scare campaign initiated by an ambitious bureaucrat concerned solely with expanding his domain was soon picked up by _Newsweek_: For instance, in early 1978 _Newsweek_ assured its readers that “Texas … has perhaps 50,000 school-age illegal aliens.” While giving age-specific data on the illegal alien population is remarkable enough, they also predicted the future, for elsewhere they asserted that “about 1.5 million Mexicans are expected to slip into the U.S. in 1978.” A few months earlier, _Newsweek_ declared that the number of illegal aliens who entered this country prior to 1970 and are still here “totals no more than 5,000,000 persons.” Almost a year later, in January 1979, _Newsweek_ was mesmerized by big, round, inaccurate numbers. According to the magazine, “a fresh flow of about one million immigrants, legal and illegal,” was entering the United States each year from Mexico. There was no indication of where this fanciful figure might have come from. \[p. 180, _The Golden Door_\] Actually, there is every indication of where those fanciful figures might have come from—they can be traced straight back to the INS, by way of court intellectuals like Melanie Wirken, director of Zero Population Growth’s immigration project, who declared in the mid-1970s that 800,000 illegals per year were entering this country, and Garrett Hardin, professor of _Human Ecology_ at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who wrote: “Numerous students of the problem (in government and out) estimate the true number of illegals \[entering annually\] is not less than 800,000 and may be more than 1,200,000.” (cited in _The Golden Door_, p. 180). A year later Hardin upped his estimate to 1.7 million. And according to _The Golden Door_, both Wirkin and Hardin got their information straight from the horse’s mouth— General Leonard F. Chapman. These incredible figures are in fact based on the number of I-213 forms filled out and filed each year by INS personnel. An I-213 is filled out for each apprehension of an illegal, and for every occasion on which the crew of a foreign ship or plane overstays a visit; such forms may also be filled out to report an INS officer’s suspicion of the presence of an illegal alien. This is what Chapman, Hardin, and Wirkin mean when they say that this country is being “overrun” by an “illegal alien” invasion—what they really mean is that the INS is being overrun by I-213 forms. The government’s assertions about why immigrants come to the United States are just as unfounded. The two most common—that the _mojados_ (or “wets”) come here to take jobs from Americans and welfare checks from taxpayers— are almost completely divorced from reality. The immigrants have in fact created _new_ businesses and _new_ jobs. Usually, Mexican immigrants do not directly compete with American citizens for the same jobs. And even when they do, their very presence in the economy means that an entirely new market has come into existence, and that, in turn, means economic growth. Despite the current popularity of the “environmentalist ethic,” most Americans consider this a benefit, not a threat. The INS-pushed racist image of the lazy, devious “Frito Bandito” is nothing but a lie. The truth is that the _mojados_ are not very “alien” at all. The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) and other pioneer investigators in this field contend that: (1) Latin American illegals are primarily from urban areas; “They were neither the chronic unemployed,” reports NACLA, “nor the poorest in their societies.” Most were employed. (2) Relative to the folks back in El Salvador, or Sinaloa province in Mexico, these newcomers have a high degree of education. One study shows that the median level of school completed is eleventh grade for women, tenth grade for men. All are deemed literate—which is more than can be said for many graduates of the U.S. public schools—and nearly half the women and a quarter of the men have completed twelve years of education. ## Los coyotes Those that don’t come from Mexico hail, instead, from the Caribbean basin. An increasing number of them are fleeing social and political upheaval—usually the direct result of U.S. intervention in the affairs of Latin American nations. They come here by land, by sea, by air—and, more and more, with the kind of professional help that crossing the border undetected seems to require. This is where _los coyotes_—the increasingly sophisticated “black market” smuggling operators—come in. In 1978, the going rate for a firstclass smuggling job was $300. This included transportation into the interior, and a solemn vow that the black marketeer would keep trying until the client got safely over the border. The Border Patrol has limited resources, and cannot watch every mile every minute. The border is almost completely unguarded for approximately one hour three times daily, when the Border Patrol shifts change. It is the smugglers’ job to know the shift schedule, and it is in fact common knowledge in certain circles. The coyotes—like all black market operators of this type—are not known for their honesty or reliability; in some cases, they are paid by the authorities to dump their clients into the waiting arms of the INS. Often, a smuggler who wants to put a rival out of business will simply turn his competitor in to the Mexican police. And, as we have seen, they don’t call Tijuana “the Vietnam of the Southwest” for nothing; violence, whether initiated by the _coyotes_ or by the INS, or both, is definitely on the upswing along the southern border. Tijuana is, nevertheless, the major point of entry for the immigrants. The three principal routes are: (1) Across the flood-plain of the Tijuana River, west of Interstate Highway 5. Illegals cross the road toward the beaches, then slip through the infamous “fence” which is riddled with holes. From this point, it’s a twenty minute walk to the nearest town; only the Tijuana River, which can usually be waded, presents any further obstacle. (2) Through the canyons, west of Interstate 5, which are a veritable maze. In spite of electronic sensors, this is the route most traveled, because it provides the most cover. It is also the most dangerous. (3) The underground route. The huge water drain pipes, which one can enter in Mexico and exit in the U.S., are another sort of maze—and these dark corridors are also watched, closely, via electronic sensor devices. There are only a few possible exits, and these are patrolled by INS agents. Yet some, in their desperation, choose even this way out. ## Betting on a new world What kind of spirit moves people to risk everything—even their lives—for a chance at a new life? What is it that drives them to defy the State, and luck itself, to bet on a new world? Even against the greatest odds, and against all advice, they come to the United States and live in the shadow of the marketplace, in the nooks and crannies of our society. Why? Ask them: > “In my neighborhood,” says one immigrant, “people would tell fairy tales about the United States. I remember one time, a woman who was living in the U.S. returned to El Salvador and told everyone that things were so good there you could buy clothes in the afternoon, wear them once—and if you didn’t like them you could throw them away.” (From an interview in the _NACLA Report_: Nov.–Dec. 1979, p. 11) Although the neoconservative critics of modern society—those whose Congressional acolytes are responsible for tightening immigration restrictions—never stop kvetching about the decline of the so-called “work ethic” and the demise of bourgeois values, perhaps even they would change their tune if they could listen to Elena, and see the rebirth and regeneration of the old values in their newest adherents: “I hear about people in this country who have a hard time finding a job. Well, I never had any trouble at all,” sniffs Elena, who got her first U.S. job in the garment industry in Brooklyn. “If you look, and you’re really willing to work, you find what you need.” (_NACLA Report_; p. 15) _Los mojados_, the hidden people, those who live on the edge of things: hunted and maligned, but unbowed and unstoppable, these are a proud people. But their old enemy, _La Migra_ (the INS), is also proud; although some might call it arrogance. Indeed, some say—and justly—that the INS is engaged in nothing less than a terror campaign directed at all Americans, legal and illegal. The Immigration and Naturalization Service was officially born on March 3, 1891. But it did not really come into its own, under its present name, until June 14, 1940, and it has been attempting to convince Congress and the American people that it needs more and more money to enforce stricter and stricter immigration laws ever since. By the time Jimmy Carter replaced General Chapman with Leonel Castillo in 1977, the annual INS budget increase averaged 16.4 percent. Castillo, being a Mexican-American, and intelligent enough, was in a completely untenable position from the start. Faced with senior INS officials who emphasized “enforcement” over “service,” and Chicano activists who took the opposite tack, Castillo was shot down in the crossfire, and ended up resigning. His appointment, which was intended as a sop to the Chicano community, has instead backfired in Carter’s face and further lessened the president’s already waning credibility with the fastest growing constituency in the West. And as more pressure is brought to bear on the president and Congress by the labor/racist/environmentalist coalition to “do something” about the “illegal alien problem,” election-year hysteria—and a touch of war fever—may very well see the INS bureaucracy bloated even beyond its present grotesque level. The escalation of the border war, the rapid Vietnamization of the American Southwest, is unmistakably on the agenda—and the Border Patrol is already straining at the leash. The Border Patrol was established on May 28, 1924, by the passage in Congress of the Department of Labor Appropriations Act, which dispensed “at least one million dollars . . . for additional land-border patrol.” Since then, the force has grown to nearly two thousand authorized positions out of a total of approximately 11,000 INS employees, with more positions in the works. The patrol enjoys sweeping powers of search, seizure, investigation, and arrest, and a Congressional Act of February 27, 1925, gave the Patrol the further power to board any ship or vehicle in search of illegals. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 authorized the Patrol and other INS agents to “interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien” and “to arrest any alien or person believed to be an alien.” Although these powers are not supposed to extend to residential areas, the INS has recently made surprise “street sweeps” in East Los Angeles. People have been routed out of their homes, both legals and illegals, and rounded up like cattle. The INS doesn’t require a warrant. An ACLU lawyer who was subjected to a humiliating search at the Mexican-American border described the INS’s ransacking of his camper for the _New York Times_: “They went through the drawers and the closets and pulled out all the clothes.” Mr. Harrington recalled, “I asked one of them if he had a warrant or any probable cause to search us, and he said, ‘We can search you if you want. If you don’t like it, take us to court.’” (7/22/79) ## The machinery of bigotry The use of INS checkpoints in the interior—there are 10 permanent motor vehicle checkpoints in California, and 15 in Texas—are currently among the most controversial of the methods the agency uses to apprehend illegals, along with its searches of factories and private dwellings. Not only are factories and homes raided with relentless regularity, but U.S. citizens who also happen to be Chicanos are singled out and harassed—and, of course, are forced to pay the bill for it in their taxes. Given the scope of its powers, only one thing keeps the INS from instituting police state methods to close the borders once and for all—lack of money. Yet the incompetence of the INS, combined with its lack of resources, produces a certain kind of highly effective terror. As the _NACLA Report_ on immigration says: “...in New York City the INS is eminently effective in controlling illegal immigrants once they settle in. And to the undocumented, it is the very randomness of the INS surveillance that makes it so awesome. INS records are far too chaotic to permit agents to pursue the thousands of individuals with overstayed tourist visas on file, much less those immigrants running the southern border....” (p. 29) INS raids are thus more and more dependent on information gleaned from _denuncias_—anonymous telephone tips. And so a reign of terror, without apparent rhyme or reason, holds sway in the Mexican-American community. The policies— the very existence—of the INS are nothing less than institutionalized racism subsidized by its victims. As Cesar Chavez, Chicano leader, asks Congress for the enactment of draconian measures to deport “strike-breaking” illegals—whose very existence seems to threaten the interests of the labor aristocracy—his “liberal” environmentalist friends push to stop all growth but the growth of government power. As the United Farm Workers turn their Chicano sisters and brothers over to the INS—442 arrests of suspected illegal aliens were made in California’s Central Valley in the past year as a direct result of information obtained from the UFW—the Ku Klux Klan patrols the U.S./ Mexican border, hooded and armed, “helping” the INS to keep America Anglo. And as government-caused inflation drags us to the brink of another depression, the possibility of an anti-immigrant backlash, quickened by racism and fueled by war hysteria and resurgent militarism, is not an unlikely possibility. As was demonstrated by Jimmy Carter’s crackdown on Iranian students—and his subsequent jump in the polls—and as was aptly stated in the Introduction to the _NACLA Report_: “The idea of the ‘illegal alien’ \[is\] more of a political manipulation than a reflection of economic and social reality.” (p. 6) The INS and the laws it is charged with enforcing cannot be reformed or otherwise fixed. Only the abolition of the INS and the opening of the borders—a policy of free passage and free trade on an international scale—will solve this government-created problem. There is no “illegal alien invasion.” What is being invaded is the right of every human being to travel freely, to work, and to live in peace. The fight for the rights of these Latin-Americans looms now as the biggest, most tumultuous civil rights battle of the ’80s. Now that Americans from many different communities are uniting in their opposition to more government controls, the rising militance of the Chicano population is timed exactly right. For only the unleashing of some such elemental force can break the chains that bind us all. \[\] Justin Raimondo is the founder of the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus and editor of _Libertarian Vanguard_. He is the author of _In Praise of Outlaws: Rebuilding Gay Liberation_ (a pamphlet published by Students for a Libertarian Society) as well as numerous articles in _Liberty_. He is the Libertarian candidate for state assembly in California’s 16th district.