Prevention Through Deterrence and Rising Temperatures: The Overlap Between Climate Change and the Border Crisis
In late August of this year, US Customs and Border Patrol agents found a two-year-old boy in the Arizona desert next to the bodies of his mother and 10-year-old sister. While the boy survived, he was in need of medical attention and taken to a hospital. The Yuma County medical examiner determined that the deaths were heat-related as the temperature recorded that day reached 119ºF.
Climate change is rapidly affecting the migrant crisis. It is increasingly becoming a motivator for migration and making the journey unprecedentedly dangerous. The US’s “prevention through deterrence” (PTD) policy, intended to decrease immigration by closing off safe methods of entry in urban areas, pushes migrants to enter the US through the desert at the southern border. Already dangerous, the prevention through deterrence policy is now making the journey through the desert deadlier due to the ever-increasing extreme heat.
On September 15 of this year, in an open letter to the Biden Administration, sixty-eight signatories composed of human rights, immigration, and environmental organizations emphasized the importance of addressing extreme climate in US immigration policy and the devastating effects that rising temperatures and PTD working in tandem could have. However, there may be a lack of political will to address these concerns because climate change may actually make PTD more effective. PTD was designed to make the journey of migrants deadlier, and the impact of the climate crisis is rapidly advancing that goal.
In several previous posts, we have discussed the history and disastrous impact of the US Border Patrol’s PTD migration policy. Adopted in 1994, the strategy discourages irregular migration across the US/Mexico border by closing off historically frequented urban points of entry. By shutting off these safe entry points, Border Patrol sought to push migration channels toward the hostile terrain of the desert. In its 1994 Strategic Plan, Border Patrol outlined its intentions explicitly: “The prediction is that with traditional entry and smuggling routes disrupted, illegal traffic will be deterred, or forced over more hostile terrain, less suited for crossing and more suited for enforcement.” In theory, by making the crossing more perilous fewer migrants would choose to make the journey and irregular migration would decrease. In practice, however, PTD has done little to slow the number of migrants entering through the US’s southern border. Since 2000, more than six million people have attempted to enter the United States through Arizona’s Sonoran desert alone. In April 2021, Customs and Border Protection reported that it had encountered or apprehended an average of 6,000 people a day along the southern border.
While this policy has failed in its goal of prevention, it has succeeded in one sense: migration into the United States has become deadlier. From October 2000 through September 2016, Border Patrol documented 6,023 migrant deaths in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Most die from dehydration, heatstroke, or hypothermia and their bodies are often unidentifiable.
In February 2021, the Biden-Harris Administration laid out steps to reform the US immigration system, in part by highlighting irregular migration at the southern border. The three-part framework involves addressing the underlying causes of migration, collaborating with regional partners to protect migrants, and ensuring access to asylum. While this strategy is certainly admirable, the administration has not yet stated that it will reform the current PTD scheme or even attempt to decrease enforcement at the border. Vice-President Harris, speaking in Guatemala, warned would-be migrants, “Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our borders.” With increasing flows of migrants both from Central America and, more recently, from Haiti, silence on this issue is certainly a cause for concern. More worryingly, this strategy is poised to become even more brutal, as climate change makes the already arduous journey even deadlier.
The effects of climate change are already apparent and set to increase without proper interventions. Unlivable, extreme hot zones currently cover less than 1 percent of the earth’s land surface. But if temperatures continue to rise by 2070 these unlivable areas could cover one fifth of the planet, resulting in the forced migration of one third of the global population. Climate migration is not, however, a theoretical future problem. While not yet expressly grounds for asylum under international law, environmental migration, which refers to those on the move as a result of climate change, has become increasingly recognized as a primary driver of migration in the 21st century. Recently, in its Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, the United Nations explicitly cited climate change as a structural failure compelling people to leave their country of origin.
The effects of climate change are evident across the globe, particularly in Central America. Poor, rural farmers in Guatemala are facing uncertain crops yields due to extreme weather events. Research projects that by 2070 crop yields in the country could be cut by a third. Families dependent on agriculture can no longer safely anticipate an adequate harvest and thus find it increasingly difficult to remain in the region. As a result, many choose to make the difficult journey north to the United States.
Climate change is also exacerbating the already dangerous journey north. Advocacy groups have criticized the Border Patrol’s policy of using the desert as a “weapon” against undocumented migrants, turning the southern border into a “vast graveyard of the missing.” Climate change is poised to make this weapon even more deadly. By the middle of the century, without proper intervention, the twenty-three US counties along the US-Mexico border could see an average of sixty days per year with a heat index above 100ºF, up from an average of just 28 in 2000. The average temperature in Arizona has increased by over 2ºF since the 1970’s, making wildfires in the border region bigger, more frequent, and more severe. Over the last decade, as the temperature has risen, so have migrant deaths at the southern border. In 2020, Arizona saw its hottest, driest summer in the state’s history. It also saw a ten-year peak in border crossing deaths. In this way, climate change likely makes the prevention through deterrence policy more effective. Its goal of pushing migrants toward more inhospitable border crossings is certainly accomplished as an increasingly extreme climate makes the region even more dangerous.
In their September 15 letter to the Biden administration, the 68 human rights, migration, and environmental organizations stress the urgency of immediate action needed to address the problem of climate change and the PTD policy. It states,
“this summer’s historic incidences of extreme heat further underscore the cruelty of the ‘prevention through deterrence’ paradigm and increase the urgency of adopting a climate-informed approach to policies affecting border communities, migrants, and asylum seekers. DHS should plan now for continued extreme heat events by ending reliance on the deterrence paradigm and transforming border operations to prioritize life-saving humanitarian actions.”
The letter closes with several urgent recommendations for the Department of Homeland Security including: (1) an end to the prevention through deterrence strategy of immigration enforcement; (2) the adoption of a long-term plan to address climate migration and the dangers of extreme heat on at-risk populations; (3) and the creation of a non-enforcement-related border rescue team empowered to assist migrants and save lives, rather than serve a mixed police/humanitarian role.
International law may also put pressure on the Biden administration to act. On October 8, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution recognized access to a healthy and sustainable environment as a universal human right. In her speech to the assembly, the High Commissioner cited the “dry corridor” of Central America where declining rainfall and frequent extreme weather events are causing a “fast-moving humanitarian crisis.” While not binding, the resolution could spur more ambitious action to address the causes of climate change and its adverse effects on vulnerable populations. The UN Environment Programme sees the resolution as an opportunity for states to “address environmental crises in a more coordinated, effective and non-discriminatory manner, help achieve the Sustainable Developing Goals, provide stronger protection of rights and of the people defending the environment, and help create a world where people can live in harmony with nature.” The resolution contains an invitation to the UN General Assembly to consider the matter as well. If the General Assembly passes a similar resolution, the United States may have an obligation to address its role in the climate crisis.
Climate change and oppressive immigration policies are on a collision course. Devastating on its own, prevention through deterrence is made all the more lethal with the added burden of extreme heat and weather events. Climate change not only increasingly compels migration, but makes the journey north to the United States unprecedentedly dangerous. Unless the United States acts quickly to address its roles in both the climate and migration crises, implements solutions to make border crossings safer, and puts an end to the dangerous prevention through deterrence policy, migrant deaths along the border will continue to rise.
Author Bio: Rachel Medara is a third-year law student at Boston University School of Law, participating in the migrant disappearance project of BU’s International Human Rights Clinic. Rachel hopes to pursue a career in international labor law and is especially interested in migrant worker unionization.
