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The U.S-Mexico Border: A Strategy of Low-Intensity Conflict
MARIA JIMENEZ is Director of the Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project (LEMP), a project of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC/ILEMP, 6926 Navigation Blvd., Houston, TX 77011; e-mail: [email protected]). Founded in 1987, its goal is to reduce the abuse of authority in the enforcement of immigration laws. LEMP works with community-based groups in four areas of the U.S.-Mexico border: San Diego, southern Arizona, the El Paso/New Mexico area, and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. This essay is excerpted from an interview conducted by Rebecca Phares, who is on the staff of the Religious Task Force on Central America and Mexico (RTFCAM). Founded in March 1980, the Religious Task Force supports and promotes the witness of people of faith working for justice and peace in Central America and Mexico. The RTFCAM also works toward new attitudes, priorities, and policies within the United States. The interview was published by the Religious Task Force on Central America and Mexico in their Central America/Mexico Report (Vol. 20, No. 4, September 2000). Reprinted with permission from the Religious Task Force on Central America and Mexico.
Could you give our readers a brief introduction to what your job is?
The American Friends Service Committee established this particular project in 1987, so it's been around 13 years. The work we do in the areas of the U.S.-Mexico border is with community-based organizations to document human and civil rights violations in the enforcement of immigration laws. For about the first decade, we concentrated on Southern California, southern Arizona, El Paso, and the Rio Grande Valley. Recently, we have been restructuring, and so we are probably going to try to work primarily in the New Mexico and Texas areas of the border because, the way the enforcement strategy has been developed by the INS, most of the flow of undocumented immigrants is going through the State of New Mexico and the State of Texas, as opposed to California and southern Arizona.
What are some of the changes that have been made in the last few years with respect to law enforcement at the border?
The largest federal law enforcement agency in the country right now is the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), with its uniformed...