Description

Jose Palafox, ed.

This issue examines US-Mexico border policing in terms of the effects of US immigration and border policy on unauthorized migrants and on the well-being of US citizens. The Southwest border has been the key locus of militarized enforcement in the United States, with the deepest institutional ties between the military and police bodies and involving the application of low-intensity conflict doctrine. Authors look at the human rights implications of border militarization, including “militarized border rape,” sexual assault, and the killing of civilians, as well as at how the associated ideology is embedded with issues of patriarchy and threats to national security. Ethnographic research examines the contextual dimensions that foster and sustain border rights violations. Contributors investigate the increased reliance of the INS and state and local police agencies on military terminology, the expansion of detention centers, and the ways in which current policies affect the demographic composition of undocumented border crossers. Authors ask how border enforcement structures unauthorized migration to the benefit of US employers and furthers the divide between undocumented workers and US-born workers. Among the disturbing consequences of militarization in the United States and Mexico have been increased social polarization in both countries and the idea that in a militarized social conflict involving overwhelmingly nonviolent transgressors, it is appropriate to destroy the enemy (i.e., civilian populations).

Purchase articles (click on the author link to read the abstract and buy the pdf):

Jose Palafox, Introduction to Gatekeeper’s State: Immigration and Boundary Policing in an Era of Globalization [Free Download]

Timothy J. Dunn, Border Militarization Via Drug and Immigration Enforcement: Human Rights Implications

Sylvanna M. Falcón, Rape as a Weapon of War: Advancing Human Rights for Women at the U.S.-Mexico Border

Michael Huspek, Production of State, Capital, and Citizenry: The Case of Operation Gatekeeper

Peter B. Brownell, Border Militarization and the Reproduction of Mexican Migrant Labor

Sasha Khokha, Community and Labor Relations: The INS Plays the ‘Good Cop’

Victor Ortiz, The Unbearable Ambiguity of the Border

NGOs of the Border Encuentro, The Encounter on Globalization, Migration, and Militarization: ‘A Dialogue Between NGOs’

Joseph Nevins, Searching for Security: Boundary and Immigration Enforcement in an Age of Intensifying Globalization

Jose Palafox, Border Games and Border Thinking: A Review of Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide

Peter Andreas, Border Games: A Response to Palafox