Word: patrol
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...American soldiers still stationed in Haiti have come to occupy two radically different worlds. The first is the world of Port-au-Prince, which belongs to conventional soldiers who patrol the streets, keep the peace and bide their time until they are scheduled to return home. The second world belongs to the 1,200 men of the Special Forces who, since the occupation began, have overseen rural Haiti. Taking on the roles of sheriff, prosecutor, judge, plumber, mayor and ghostbuster, these commandos are often the only glue holding together the 5 million Haitians who live outside the capital...
Their tactics, often devised on the spot, have been unusual, to say the least. To clear the streets of thugs, Green Berets on patrol took to inverting their night-vision goggles so that they glowed in the dark. In Les Cayes, the Special Forces jailed a judge overnight to teach him how inhumane prison conditions were. They have also moved aggressively to arrest anyone they thought might be a bad guy. "We detained them. We cuffed them," acknowledges the commanding officer, Colonel Mark Boyatt. "We did this without a whole lot of proof. But it was a very visible symbol...
...furor over Proposition 187, however, has obscured an anti- immigration campaign that may have just as much impact, but far sooner. Attorney General Janet Reno has decided to try to virtually seal off the 2,076-mile border with Mexico to illegal crossers. The U.S. Border Patrol has long maintained it could accomplish this if given a chance, but the patrol has always been underfunded and understaffed...
...agency is getting its chance. The campaign started with successful experiments in the Border Patrol sectors in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego. Operation Hold the Line, which began a year ago in El Paso, has brought a 72% reduction in arrests, which are considered the most accurate bellwether of the number of illegal crossings. In the San Diego area, where half of all illegal immigrants into the U.S. sneak through the jagged canyons and urban alleys, a two-year tightening effort culminating in Operation Gatekeeper in October has reduced the number of arrests 30%. Inspired by these statistics...
...wall, some skeptics wonder whether the U.S. can really seal off a border that consists largely of four-strand barbed wire and the Rio Grande, and includes the barren deserts around Yuma, Arizona; the thick evergreen brush near McAllen, Texas; two ocean ports; and several mountain ranges. The Border Patrol insists it can do so, in part because of that very terrain. The vast majority of crossings now take place in and around urban areas. The crackdowns in San Diego and El Paso rely on enhanced ( technology, fences and manpower over short stretches of mostly urban zones, forcing immigrants...