Operation Gatekeeper

Background

Operation Gatekeeper was the product of both local and national factors. In the early 1990s, the westernmost part of the San Diego sector was the most heavily trafficked part of the United States-Mexico border. Although some walls and lighting did exist prior to Operation Gatekeeper, the terrain was relatively easy to traverse and migrants could reach pickup points in the United States within a matter of minutes.

As an increasing number of unauthorized Mexicans immigrants settled in San Diego—which remained majority Anglo until 2000—some Californians, including Republican governor Pete Wilson, blamed them for heightened social tensions, an uptick in crime, and the state's economic woes. Many Californians also faulted the federal government for failing to enforce the nation's borders.

In response to such concerns, Proposition 187, which aimed to deny unauthorized immigrants access to public education, health care, and other social service benefits, was proposed. In the hope of bolstering his reelection, Wilson quickly embraced Proposition 187, also known as the Save Our State initiative, and it quickly became a central issue in the 1994 state and national elections.

Proposition 187 and the midterm elections forced the Clinton administration to take a stronger stance on immigration enforcement than it had in the past. But Operation Gatekeeper was not entirely without precedent. In September 1993, Silvestre Reyes, head of the Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas, unilaterally implemented Operation Blockade, later renamed Hold-the-Line. Operation Blockade placed hundreds of agents along a 20-mile section of the border in west Texas and resulted in a significant drop in crossings and apprehensions. Wilson and other California politicians saw Operation Blockade as a model of immigration enforcement and called for it to be implemented in their state. Feeling political pressure to lead on immigration, and hoping that voters would strike down Proposition 187, the Clinton administration launched Operation Gatekeeper five weeks before the 1994 elections.

Impact of Operation Gatekeeper

Operation Gatekeeper marked an important shift in federal immigration enforcement policy by focusing on prevention through deterrence rather than apprehensions of migrants already in the country. The most immediate change under Operation Gatekeeper was the militarization of the San Diego sector of the United States-Mexico border. Steel landing mats left over from the Vietnam War were used to construct a 10 to 12-foot-high primary wall along the border. Secondary and tertiary walls made of concrete pillars and wire mesh, both topped with barbed wire, lined many sections of the border as well.

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