Border Control and Biosecurity
In the early days of the reported swine flu outbreaks, there was an publicly-arranged exchange between U.S senators with Adm. Anne Schuchat MD, interim deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on one prominent issue: What would cause the U.S. to close the U.S.-Mexico border?
However, as Napolitano indicated, there would be no such border closings. Despite this answer, the fact that this question was asked and the responses that several media voices have offered regarding this topic reveals how much the idea of closing the United States’ “open borders and open door policy” is prevalent in American society, especially in the political field.
Additionally, what Napolitano states about the idea of closing the border is very significant: "Since we have flu in Canada, I would anticipate that the same argument would be made there… closing both borders with all of the huge impacts that that would have, in light of the fact that the scientists and the epidemiologists say would have virtually no impact on the amount of disease in our country…you understand why closing the border is not an adequate answer to this epidemic.” It should be noted that Napolitano addresses the notion of closing BOTH borders, but in many ways the media and the public do not normally address the migration or “open door policy” that the US has with Canada.
Although Napolitano is merely trying to address the sheer impracticality of closing both borders and separating the US from the world and its diseases, it also demonstrates how the “southerness” of Mexico creates this foreignness to the United States. What are the repercussions of this construction then?
Using The Fear of Disease to Close the Borders
"Why don't you do your job, Napolitano, you bum you? And why don't you ask yourself, you dumb fool you, could this be a terrorist attack through Mexico? Could our dear friends in the radical Islamic countries have concocted this virus and planted it in Mexico knowing that you, Janet Napolitano, would do nothing to stop the flow of human traffic from Mexico? And they are a perfect mule -- perfect mules for bringing this virus into America. But you wouldn't think that way, would you? Because you are incapable of protecting America's homeland, Napolitano."
-Michael Savage, April 24th 2009. The Savage Nation.
In particular, let’s examine a passage from Michael Savage as evidence of mass media hysteria: he associates Patient Zero as evidence for H1N1 swine flu as the start of a “terrorist attack through Mexico”. Before performing a close analysis of this claim, I would like to recontextualize this statement by mentioning that Savage is a radio host and his role as a political talking head is to sensationalize the news to raise the audience investment in what he is saying. That being said, equating the idea that Mexico as harboring biological terrorists per se is socially irresponsible simply because the message is not just about fearing the country, but fearing the actual physical presence of Mexican individual. To be an individual who represents all the ills of the respective country and race is an intense form of marginalization. However, the comments by Savage would be echoed by another radio host.
"What better way to sneak a virus into this country than give it to Mexicans? Right? So you give -- you give -- you let this virus just spread in Mexico, where they don't have a CDC... They don't have the inoculation programs. So if you want to get that epidemic into this country, get it going real good and hot south of the border. And, you know, then just spread a rumor that there's construction jobs available somewhere, and here it comes. Because we're not gonna do anything to stop them from coming across the border. I can guarantee you, political correctness being the way it is in this country, if this was -- how many -- how many Mexicans have died of this thing now? So on the bioterrorism, on the bioterrorism angle, hey, you know, who knows what's going on?"
-Neal Boortz, April 27th, 2009. The Neal Boortz Show
When focusing on Boortz's statement, two elements stand out the most: First the bioterrorism angle that has been discussed already. However, the other element comes from the part about “spread a rumor that there’s construction jobs available somewhere”, which discusses the economic impact. In this statement, two fears are seen, the idea that the Mexicans are coming to take the jobs in this hard pressed economy and the fact that when they don’t have those jobs, they’ll stay in the U.S and find themselves dependent on the government.
9/ 11 and its Impact on Imagining Security
In April 15th, on his nationally syndicated radio program, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly seconded a caller's assertions regarding illegal immigration -- that, with the numerous diseases "the illegals" purportedly bring to this country, "each one of those people is a biological weapon," and that the impact of illegal immigration "equals and surpasses the impact of 9-11." To those assertions, O'Reilly responded, "You might be right," and speculated about the consequences for the United States of having "11 million [undocumented immigrants] running around unsupervised."
By now you may have identified a common motif in these media reports and opinions about the swine flu situation: The obsession over the "illegals" that are entering the United States and the "biological bombs" that these individuals are. In particular, the term "bioterrorist" appears to be a new term to designate the Mexican people, but how exactly did this come to be? Therefore we need to assess the legacy of 9/11 on the U.S and Mexico.
The attacks on 9/11 changed how the country approached the immigration debate, transforming homeland security into one of the biggest themes and justification of public policy. In 2002, President Bush passed the Homeland Security Act, creating programs that would keep the U.S safe from future terrorist attacks. This new department included the U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and the U.S Customs and Border Protection (CFB). With this new level of federal funding, it would be safe to assume that border control would take on a new meaning in the United States.
(Image Source: http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/260/include/beforeafterG.html)
However, when looking at this graph collected by TRAC Immigration, an independent and nonpartisan report group regarding U.S federal immigrant enforcement, we see that homeland security has not been concentrating on terrorism as making sure certain populations could not stay in the United States, much less enter it. As ABC news noted, "It's worth noting that the 9/11 terrorists on temporary visas and had authorization (if fraudulently obtained) to be entered the country. Yet in the 11 years since the attack, we've devoted enormous resources to securing the southern border and deporting non-criminal immigrants. The leading countries of origin for people removed from the U.S in 2011 were Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador" With this information, it seems more and more apparent that the United States policy on immigration and subsequent pop culture has a strong aversion that has connotations of being geographically south of the border.
An Academic Justification / Perspective of the Conservative Voice and Apprehensiveness Towards Mexico
In conservative author Samuel Huntington's book Who We Are he believed that In the late 20th century, the Anglo-Protestant culture that has been central to American identity have been challenged by “the spread of Spanish as the second American language and the Hispanization trends in American society…” (Forward xvi) Although Huntington is quick to point out his support for the importance of Anglo-Protestant culture, not for the importance of Anglo-Protestant people, it is still difficult to separate the two points at time. After all this kind of rhetoric is easily expanded on other conservative commentators.
By specifically citing the Hispanic presence as a huge concern, it is clear that Huntington and other similar trains of thought are concerned about their beliefs in a multiethnic, multiracial United States is being shaped by influences other than the traditional white male model. This is further confirmed when he declares that “There is no Americano dream. There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican-Americans will share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English” (256) This focus only on the lack of assimilation and difficulty that the Mexican immigrants bring to the United States without consideration for how it came to be is a common thread that seems to appear in the conservative voices against Mexico.
While Huntington does discuss about how forces of globalization and corporate ideology that value cosmopolitan over national identities undermine the importance that Americans attribute to their national identity, he continually returns back to the subject of how the large “Hispanic influx raised questions concerning America’s linguistic and cultural unity” (4) As a result, Huntington bemoans the fact that in this new age of globalization, an increasingly proportion in the United States also identified with other countries besides the United States. Despite Huntington’s concerns regarding the purity of the American values to remain, he does that spend enough significant time focusing on the impact of NAFTA and other structural factors that intertwined the U.S and Mexico fates even closer (something we will discuss much later in greater detail).
Huntington’s point is a good reference and explanation for what drives the conservative voices to express their thoughts about Mexicans the way they do. However, these appeals to fear regarding immigration are actually distractions from the deeper, structural issues at hand that would even result in outbreaks in the first place.
Discussion Questions
- Do the claims of of Savage and Boortz, although racist, hold valid points in how the United States should have approached the threat of swine flu during its early days? Or does this stigmatization cause further problems by demonizing one group and impede overall progress to combat the disease?
- If Canada was the location where Patient Zero was discovered, do you think there would be as much push to close the borders then?
- If we know that 9/11 left a large legacy on how immigration and border-crossings were conceptualized, how might have the 2009 swine flu outbreak influenced this narrative?
- Do you think that author Samuel Huntington's points about Mexican assimilation has valid points? If so, what are they? Also, are there any blind points in his analysis?
Additional Resources
Radio Clip of Boortz's statement: http://mediamatters.org/video/2009/04/27/boortz-on-swine-flu-what-better-way-to-sneak-a/149543
Radio Clip of Lou Dobb's statements of Swine Flu: http://mediamatters.org/video/2009/04/29/discussing-outbreak-of-swine-flu-or-h1n1-virus/149653
Impact that 9/11 has made on U.S Spending: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/cost-graphic.html
Statistical Information about U.S Deportations: http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/260/include/beforeafter.html
Additional source on 9/11's legacy on U.S and Mexico: http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/mexico-border-closings-deportation-juarez-drug
Additional source on 9/11's legacy on U.S and Mexico: http://www.cfr.org/border-and-port-security/rethinking-role-us-mexican-border-post-911-world/p6906
Additional source on 9/11's legacy on U.S and Mexico:http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/09/10/effects-11-were-felt-thousands-miles-away-on-us-mexico-border/
Works Cited
Huntington, Samuel P. Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. Print.
James, Frank. "No Swine Flu U.S.-Mexico Border Closing: US Officials." NPR. NPR, 29 Apr. 2009. Web. 13 July 2013. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2009/04/no_swine_flu_usmexico_border_c.html>.
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