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Personal Safety of Federal Land-Management Field Employees Working Along the Mexican Border
The employees we interviewed expressed fear about their personal safety and health. These fears were tied to their experiences, which reinforce their perceptions that the border is becoming an increasingly dangerous place to live and work. Some employees compared their working conditions to working and living in a "trashed" neighborhood filled with "organized crime." Other employees described it as a "dangerous landscape." One employee said, "There is no pause in the problems of people coming across the border." There is a general pessimistic attitude among all employees about ever solving the "border problem." As one law enforcement officer said, "We lack resources to fight the enemy. We are never going to beat them. If law enforcement closes off aliens in one spot, it just creates a problem in another area."
A common comment we heard from employees was, "I don’t feel safe here." They view working on the border as a place where you "have to keep your guard up everyday" and "a place where workers have to constantly be aware of their surroundings." A general conclusion can easily be reached, namely, that all employees we interviewed see the border as an increasingly dangerous and unsafe workplace. As one person said, "there is no safe place, this is the Wild West." Another person expressed the view of many workers when she said, "It’s not a matter of if someone will get killed, its when."
However, in the midst of this pessimism, there was a sense that with increased awareness and personal safety training, employees can be better equipped to protect themselves when working on or near the border.
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