authorities acknowledge, however, that many more bodies of immigrants could lie undiscovered in deserted areas of mountains and desert (www.wsws.org 1999). In California's Imperial County, where many of the deaths have been reported, arrests have skyrocketed. In one-month alone last year, 7,000 men, women and children were caught in the desert after eluding agents at the border. Detected border crossings in the sector have seen a 10-fold increase since 1996 (www.wsws.org 1999). It would appear that the deterrence of immigrants isn’t working so well and these immigrants are risking their lives just for a chance at life in the United States. The Border Patrol agents in this area have increased their manpower three-fold and as a result they are facing 10 times the immigrants as before. The Border Patrol cannot keep up with the steady increase of people who attempt to cross the border each day. The Border Patrol will receive 1,000 new agents in 2001; this doesn’t seem to be enough to combat the problem. While the US government attempts to militarize the border and pursues immigrant workers and their families as if they were some hostile invading army, the relations between US capitalism and the economies of Mexico as well as Central and South America continue to push ever-growing numbers of unemployed and impoverished people north in search of jobs, even if they pay less than subsistence wages. Thus the brutal forces of the market continue to push thousands upon thousands of people into a death trap created by capitalist oppression and the INS's border crackdown. Is Operation Gatekeeper producing results in arrests? Yes. Is Gatekeeper deterring immigrants from trying to enter illegally? No and I don’t think it is for lack of effort either. These people who are risking their lives are looking for work so they can eat, they are political refugees seeking asylum, or the remaining family members of others who have suc...
