DUSK: THE IRON HAND COMES OUT

The Eugenics soldiers began to disperse amongst the military units, obsentibly to increase effectiveness among the different branches (and to keep an eye out for things which might threaten them) while the US Military was reconfigured for domestic duty among the new states in the Union where needed. While the Canadian states were relatively peaceful (many provinces were happy with the relative hands off approach of Washington to their internal affairs), the Southwestern states proved to be a much different issue.

With the collapse of social order in Mexico and the rise of narcotic trafficking baronies rule by the gun, The U.S. finally grew tired of accepting undocumented immigrants from across it’s southern borders and used it’s military, and volunteer militia groups to seal it’s borders and hired companies to assist with it’s port security. A hew and cry rose up from the U.N. and various NGO’s, saying the U.S. had no right to do so. The U.S. Ambassador, after consulting with Washington, and sensing the general level of outrage from the country at foreigners daring to tell it how to run it’s internal affairs, Informed the U.N. that it had 72 hours to vacate the East River complex as the United States was no longer interested in supporting an organization ‘full of ingrates, thieves, and child molesters’. Shock l became near panic in various countries as intelligence services read a build up of military forces in the New York area as well as registering two U.S. naval battle-groups deployed in the Atlantic near the coasts. U.N. diplomatic offices were vacated in a three day side-show in New York, much to the amusement of the locals who had a long standing antipathy to the residents of the East River Complex.

Newscasts from various veterans embittered by treatment by Allied forces made it’s way across talk radio, furthering tensions between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. While many socialist leaning papers in Europe and Asia crowed about the rise of what appeared to be Fascism in the U.S., many more level headed papers offered more insightful analysis into the U.S.’s increasing isolationism and increasing bitterness towards Europe, and sounded stern warnings about getting what one wished for, and calls for calm and more diplomatic language. A U.S. turned truly expansionist and fascistic, unlike what many proclaimed, would be a monster like the world had never seen.

The U.S., having washed it’s hands of the U.N., spoke with it’s allies and said it would not drop it’s commitments to them, it simply would not deal with the U.N. as it was, having grown tired of it. While there was some coaxing by Great Britain, seeing the U.S. dangerously close to the precipice, the leadership was wise enough not to antagonize it as it was busy securing it’s borders and calling it’s forces home. Many other nations were less than diplomatic as U.S. residual forces were drawn home and various bases were closed down around the world that were not perceived as being needed by the U.S. anymore.

The first several nations to do so sudden found their foreign aid from the U.S. unceremoniously with the explanation that ‘The U.S. had domestic concerns to which the monies could be put to better use.” The rest of the nations that depended on the U.S. got the point and kept quiet as forces were reduced, with only the local media speculating on what had driven the U.S. to such lengths, resulting in some serious soul searching as they noticed just how much the nations that had their funding cut off completely had depended on U.S. aid.

Satisfied that the World had sufficient other things to keep it occupied and out of it’s hair, The U.S. Armed Forces, in conjunction with local police, security forces, and militias under command of the Eugenics soldiers began a massive sweep across the entire border as well as most ‘safe cities’, rooting out illegal immigrants and taking them to holding centers before they were shipped across the border. There was a large uproar from the business sector as the police sweeps rounded up tens of thousands, but ill humored soldiers and civilians, including many legal immigrants, began turning away from companies who used undocumented illegal immigrants in a organized fashion using co-ordination from various web-logs and other Pro North-American activist groups.

Other national blocks histories would refer to this as the ‘American Ethnic Cleansing’, Americans would simply refer to it as ‘Operation: Homefront Security’, stabilizing it’s geopolitical borders while removing agent provocateur within it’s borders that had infiltrated illegally, documenting them, and in a action that really couldn’t be stopped by the lack of government to the south, forcing the aspirants across the border under the watchful eye of gun towers and helicopter gunships. As a last measure of generosity, the Americans said that they could reenter, provided they did at legal checkpoints, and allowed themselves to be appropriately documented. They were also told in no uncertain terms that anyone coming across the border illegally and that was sighted would be shot with no exceptions. This was not widely believed until the Americans started mining the border, set up guard towers just inside the American border, and used prisoners to help build walls along the border to block all but the most deadly passages, made even more deadly by adding minefields.

The Nacrotics Barons to the south of the border found themselves watching their profits disappearing before their eyes as the border was sealed and far more draconian police sweeps were made for their ‘mules’ carrying drugs into the North American States. While some adapted and worked harder to get it into the country through shipping lanes, the Eugenics soldiers and military took a very dim view of drug smugglers and took to hanging them in areas under martial law (pretty much the entire border area and the closely affiliated cities) as examples. It became bad enough that they could not threaten people enough to try to cross the border illegally as it became far more certain death to try going over the border than facing their wrath. They could barely keep the population under control as it was, but the Americans sending millions back across the border gave them a resentful, bitter population to draw from for support and cries of ‘take back Aztlan!’ began appearing along the border.

Which is just what Domitzioli wanted. He knew that the situation would boil over into violence and that a 'divide and conquer' strategy was needed if the Mexican Territories were to be taken relatively efficiently. Many legal Mexican immigrants and their families had been bitterly resentful of illegals from Mexico and other southern nations coming into the U.S. and begin given a 'silver spoon' as soon as they showed up, taking various services and not paying for them and giving assimilated American immigrants from Mexico a bad name. Domitzioli, through a series of civilian proxies, ran a campaign highlighting the pride of those who had come legally, showing their accomplishments, while showing how illegals tarnished their good name. While never actually traced back to him, some saw it as 'trying to split the Mexican community', to which many of the assimilated responded 'We're Americans First, not Mexicans!", causing much acrimony in cities with large Mexican immigrant populations, occasionally sparking riots. Which lead to martial law as illegals were rounded up and summarily ejected across the border, then removal of the troops from the city to keep the populations support up.

As the world watched, both sides husbanded their resources and troop buildups along the border began as a deep freeze settled in between the U.S. and the Mexican territories