Frontera NorteSur October 2001

One of SWARM's primary beliefs is that it is inappropriate for the military to train civilian law enforcement or operate within the United States. SWARM staff member Jennifer Allen says that the military is not trained to work in the world of civilians but is instead "trained to kill." Training civilian law enforcement in military tactics or giving them advanced weapon skills is dangerous according to Allen because it leads police to "answer everything with a big stick." SWARM's website quotes criminologist Tony Platt as stating that, "The fundamental problem with the SWAT model is that if police become soldiers, the community becomes the enemy." The site also states that "callouts" of SWAT teams increased fourfold between 1980 and 1995 and that there are now over 30,000 heavily armed, military trained police units throughout the nation.

SWARM's concerns about what happens when soldiers are put to law-enforcement use are substantiated by the 1997 death of Esequiel Hernandez, an eighteen-year old who lived in the border town of Redford, Texas. While out tending his family's goats on May 20, 1997, Hernandez was shot and killed by a US Marine participating in a JTF-6 organized surveillance operation. Indeed, one of the outcomes of Hernandez's death was that JTF-6 stopped ground-patrol operations like the one that resulted in Hernandez's death. Since then, operational support in general has fallen from about 110 operations per year to approximately 35, according to JTF-6 statistics.

In its criticism of the Border Patrol, SWARM objects to the Border Patrol's methods, recent public-relations campaign and effect on the environment. Allen described the Border Patrol's methods as racial profiling and objects to the Border Patrol's attempts to position itself as a migrant rescue group. She called such PR a "glossy sheen of the sickest sense" because it is Border Patrol operations like Guardian and Hold the Line that force people into risky desert and mountain crossings.

SWARM does much of its work in the Sonoran Desert, a fragile ecosystem that is currently home to 120 endangered, threatened or special management species, according to Allen. In its attempts to stop illegal immigration the Border Patrol constantly drives through the area, both on and off road, and is continually installing new lights and building new roads and walls in the desert. SWARM believes that the resultant damage to the environment, noise levels and use of lights is something that hurts sensitive species. SWARM also states that Border Patrol and JTF-6 do not do legally-required, environmental-impact studies but spokespersons for both the Border Patrol and JTF-6 deny this and say that they have staff environmentalists that do nothing but make sure that their operations and building campaigns meet all legally required environmental mandates.

So far this year some of SWARM's activities outside of the Sonora-Arizona region include attending the Encuentro Fronterizo environmental conference in Tijuana and the Drug Policy Reform Conference in Albuquerque. Allen went to the World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa and SWARM has done training sessions for the Center for Third World Activism and other organizations.

Closer to home, in August, SWARM dropped body bags in front of the Tucson Federal Building that processes immigrants who are facing federal charges. On October 12, the group led 150 lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild Conference on a march between Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora to advocate for the reinstatement of civil rights and democracy in the border region.

In the near future, SWARM will be watching and reacting to how the US government responds to the events of September 11 because many government measures in the arena of border security will have obvious impacts on human and civil rights in the border region.