United States-Mexico Border Militarized Rape Research Paper

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United States-Mexico Border Militarized Rape
Introduction
Each year, hundreds of individuals try crossing to the United States through the Southwestern. Most of these border crossers come from El Salvador and Mexico and they face a distressed journey filled barbarity and insecurities especially for the women. The legal status of the immigrants prevents them from reporting these misdeeds to the relevant agencies for the fear of deportation. Statistics do not show the scale of the brutality against women and any other types of inhuman activities that occur.
It is important to note that most of the violence against women immigrants are promoted by government officials at the borders. For example, the crimes committed by Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agents and Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents are not a new phenomenon. Since the early 1990s, Human Rights Watch has been documenting such cases of abuse while persistently calling on the United States government to rectify the issue. This paper will evaluate and explain the problem of militarized border sexual assault at the United States-Mexico border and examine the factors contributing to this problem.
Many young girls and women migrating to the United States from Mexico have suffered sexual assault from the officials at the United States-Mexico border. Ordinarily, individuals who migrate from Mexico lacking the required legal documents get into illegal dealings to facilitate their entry into the United States. The perpetrators of these practices may be smugglers and sometimes it may involve government officials (Traywick, p.5). Sometimes sexual assault becomes the price of sneaking and entering the United States. Occasionally, women are reported preparing for sexual assault beforehand by taking contraceptives.
It is also keynoting that individuals without the required migration documents are unlikely to report the cases of sexual assault to the relevant government agencies for the fear of jeopardizing their intentions of crossing the border or remaining in the United States. Women are particularly treated as insignificant because of their gender and lack of legal status and they are therefore considered powerless by the militarized border patrol officers. This creates a sense of indestructibility in the men committing these rapes since they are confident that they will not be reported or charged based on these women's fears that they might be exploited further or deported back to Mexico.
The United States-Mexico border has been militarized to forcefully and powerfully establish and affirm the territory of the United States. It is important to note that in this parts, daily attacks are reported against the border crossers and they may exist in different forms which may include harassment, rape, and ruthless beatings from state officers (Sylvanna, p.119). The militarization of United States-Mexico border stands on two major elements which are; the reorganization and adjustment of the border patrols to look like the military in terms of the tactics used, the structure and the equipment used by the border officers.
Secondly, the establishment and consolidation of military units around the border areas. Ordinarily, domestic duties were previously not part of the functions of the United States military (Sylvanna, p.119). However, this regulation changed as a result of several authorizations acts from the Department of Defense which promoted the consolidation of military units around the United States-Mexico border thus loosening the constraints which prohibited military personnel from undertaking domestic duties (Dunn, p.8). The main justifications provided for the militarization is border units is need to intensify the fight against drugs and problems related to national security.
The Department of Defense Act of 1982 invalidated the statute that prohibited the collaboration and association between civilian law enforcement and the military and also changed the duties and responsibilities of the army in domestic affairs (Sylvanna, p.119). The Act advanced and promoted the collaboration of the army and the civilian law enforcement and this also played a major role in border militarization. The transfer of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to the Department of Justice form the Department of Labor in 1940 made migration an issue of national security. Additionally, the renaming of INS to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service and transferring it to the Department of Homeland Security is a proof of the tight link between immigration issues and the national security problems.
The low-intensity conflict (LIC) doctrine may help to scrutinize and to understand the issue of militarizing the border units. This doctrine champions for unconventional forms of militarization and it also stresses the need to control the targeted civilian populations. Some of the characteristics of LIC doctrine include stress on the nation's internal defense, the importance of being in charge of a target group of the civilian population and the acquisition of military characteristics by the police.
Some of the LIC doctrine aspects have been actualized in the United States-Mexico border region thus signifying that there is a war which exists in the border (Sylvanna, p.120). Every war is dominated by rape cases since sexual assault is a form of military strategy that is used in dominating women and other individuals who might be vied as enemies (Falcón, p.31-50). The integration and collaboration of the civilian units and the army at the United States-Mexico border is an indication that war with undocumented migrants is underway in this region (Michalowski, p.65). Most importantly, the calls to "shut down" the border and to construct the along the United States-Mexico border in an effort to "Protect" the United States is an indication of how serious this war is (Sylvanna, p.120).
The women immigrants moving from Mexico have to get birth control pills from the fear of getting pregnant when they are sexually assaulted (Joffe-Block, p.4). The rape victims are also faced with challenges when they decide to prosecute the assaulters. The problems faced by these individuals include the difficulties in challenging government officials and the United States government. Additionally, the victims also face problems understanding the United States judicial processes and also language barriers also disadvantage them when reporting the assault cases.
Factors that have contributed to the militarization of the United States-Mexico Border
Military Metaphysics
Military Metaphysics is a tendency to view international issues as military problems and reducing the possibilities of looking for a solution except by use of military means (Bacevich, pp. 95-100). The militarization of the United States-Mexico border is an example of military metaphysics and it hinders the policymakers from implementing means to address the problems that have caused the high arrivals of undocumented migrants to the United States. It is necessary to note that the issue of border militarization has been the policy...