“Operation Hold the Line was credited with a seventy-two percent drop in apprehensions in the El Paso sector (covering the border area between Tucson, Arizona, and Marfa, Texas) between fiscal 19, when other sectors averaged only a three percent drop. Immediately the operation affected El Paso and surrounding areas. Operation Hold the Line instead focused on intercepting and preventing illegal entries at the border. Previous policies focused on finding and deporting illegal immigrants who had already crossed the border. Operation Hold the Line was the first operation of its kind and represented a shift in ideology in policing illegal immigration. Unlike the previous attempts, however, Reyes’ blockade stayed in place until the Immigration and Naturalization Service saw the success it was having and permanently funded it.
Similar blockade attempts had been experimented with before but inevitably failed due to the expensive nature of such a preventative measure. There were four hundred agents and vehicles every 100 yards from one side of El Paso to the other, in order to prevent illegal immigration. A similar operation called Operation Gatekeeper, was also taking place in the San Diego sector.Silvestre Reyes, who was the head of the El Paso Border Control at the time, ordered his officers to form a human and vehicle blockade along the border. The location of the operation was on the United States-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas. Originally the operation was named Operation Blockade. Operation Hold the Line was a preventative measure taken by the United States Border Patrol, initiated on September 19, 1993.
0 kommentar(er)
