Emergent Public Health Issues in the US-Mexico Border Region

Emergent Public Health Issues in the US-Mexico Border Region
Author: Cecilia Ballesteros Rosales
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2017-02-16
Genre: Emigration and immigration
ISBN: 2889450473

US-Mexico border region area has unique social, demographic and policy forces at work that shape the health of its residents as well as serves as a microcosm of migration health challenges facing an increasingly mobile and globalized world. This region reflects the largest migratory flow between any two nations in the world. Data from the Pew Research Center shows over the last 25 years there has never been lower than 140,000 annual immigrants from Mexico to the United States (with peaks over 700,000). This migratory route is extremely hazardous due to natural (e.g., arid and hot desert regions) and human made barriers as well as border enforcement practices tied to socio-political and geopolitical pressures. Also, reflecting the national interdependency of public health and human services needs, during the most recent five year period surveyed the migratory flow between the US and Mexico has equaled that of the flow of Mexico to the US--both around 1.4 million persons. Of particular public health concern, within the US-Mexico region of both nations there is among the highest disparities in income, education, infrastructure and access to health care--factors within the World Health Organization’s conceptualization of the Social Determinants of Health, and among the highest rates of chronic disease. For instance obesity and diabetes rates in this region are among the highest of those monitored in the world, with adult population estimates of the former over 40% and estimates in some population sub-groups for the latter over 20%. The publications reflected in this Research Topic, all reviewed from experts in the field, addressed many of the public health issues in the US Mexico Border Health Commission’s Healthy Border 2020 objectives. Those objectives-- broad public health goals used to guide a diverse range of government, research and community-based stakeholders--include Non Communicable Diseases (including adult and childhood obesity-related ones; cancer), Infectious Diseases (e.g., tuberculosis; HIV; emerging diseases--particularly mosquito borne illnesses), Maternal and Child Health, Mental Health Disorders, and Motor Vehicle Accidents. Other relevant public health issues affecting this region, for example environmental health, binational health services coordination (e.g., immunization), the impact of migration throughout the Americas and globally in this region, health issues related to the physical climate, access to quality health care, discrimination/mistreatment and well-being, acculturative/immigration stress, violence, substance use/abuse, oral health, respiratory disease, and well-being from a social determinants of health framework, are critical areas addressed in these publications or for future research. Each of these Research Topic publications presented applied solutions (e.g., new programs, technology or infrastructure) and/or public health policy recommendations relevant to each public health challenge addressed.

Border Land, Border Water

Border Land, Border Water
Author: C. J. Alvarez
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2019-10-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 147731900X

From the boundary surveys of the 1850s to the ever-expanding fences and highway networks of the twenty-first century, Border Land, Border Water examines the history of the construction projects that have shaped the region where the United States and Mexico meet. Tracing the accretion of ports of entry, boundary markers, transportation networks, fences and barriers, surveillance infrastructure, and dams and other river engineering projects, C. J. Alvarez advances a broad chronological narrative that captures the full life cycle of border building. He explains how initial groundbreaking in the nineteenth century transitioned to unbridled faith in the capacity to control the movement of people, goods, and water through the use of physical structures. By the 1960s, however, the built environment of the border began to display increasingly obvious systemic flaws. More often than not, Alvarez shows, federal agencies in both countries responded with more construction—“compensatory building” designed to mitigate unsustainable policies relating to immigration, black markets, and the natural world. Border Land, Border Water reframes our understanding of how the border has come to look and function as it does and is essential to current debates about the future of the US-Mexico divide.

Environmental Enforcement in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region

Environmental Enforcement in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 97
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Citizen suits (Civil procedure)
ISBN: 9781585761203

Communities along the U.S.-Mexico border face a variety of environmental and public health challenges. Grassroots organizations in both countries are working to confront serious pollution problems and to promote sustainable economic development in the border region. An intricate system of laws, regulations, policies and programs has been created in the U.S. and Mexico to respond to environmental and public health concerns. Effective enforcement is a vital component of this system, and the participation and active involvement of community residents who are intimately familiar with local environmental problems can be a strong source of support for enforcement activities. As part of our joint Community Environmental Law Initiative, Elm and the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice have developed a new resource for border communities to address local environmental problems, Environmental Enforcement in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region: A Community Guide to Enforcement in Texas and Chihuahua. The handbook provides practical information about the tools for community participation in environmental enforcement, describing legal tools in the U.S. and Mexico, as well as bi-national mechanisms for promoting effective enforcement. The handbook focuses on the states of Texas and Chihuahua, but provides information about environmental agencies, laws and processes that can be useful to communities throughout the border region. The handbook is available in English and Spanish.

Lives on the Line

Lives on the Line
Author: Miriam Davidson
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2000-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780816519989

"The twin cities of Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Sonora, for years straddled an indistinct border," but with the maquiladora industry, a crackdown against undocumented immigrants, and drug smuggling, "neither Nogales will ever be the same."--Cover.

Immigration Enforcement in the United States

Immigration Enforcement in the United States
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2013
Genre: Border security
ISBN: 9780983159155

This report describes for the first time the totality and evolution since the mid-1980s of the current-day immigration enforcement machinery. The report's key findings demonstrate that the nation has reached an historical turning point in meeting long-standing immigration enforcement challenges. The question is no longer whether the government is willing and able to enforce the nation's immigration laws, but how enforcement resources and mandates can best be mobilized to control illegal immigration and ensure the integrity of the nation's immigration laws and traditions.

Migra!

Migra!
Author: Kelly Lytle Hernandez
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2010-05-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520945719

Political awareness of the tensions in U.S.-Mexico relations is rising in the twenty-first century; the American history of its treatment of illegal immigrants represents a massive failure of the promises of the American dream. This is the untold history of the United States Border Patrol from its beginnings in 1924 as a small peripheral outfit to its emergence as a large professional police force that continuously draws intense scrutiny and denunciations from political activism groups. To tell this story, MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Kelly Lytle Hernández dug through a gold mine of lost and unseen records and bits of biography stored in garages, closets, an abandoned factory, and in U.S. and Mexican archives. Focusing on the daily challenges of policing the Mexican border and bringing to light unexpected partners and forgotten dynamics, Migra! reveals how the U.S. Border Patrol translated the mandate for comprehensive migration control into a project of policing immigrants and undocumented “aliens” in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

Environmental Crime

Environmental Crime
Author: Mary Clifford
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Publishers
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2011-09
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0763794287

Environmental crime is an increasingly serious problem nationally and internationally, and is an expanding field of study in today’s environmentally conscious classroom. Fully revised and updated, Environmental Crime, Second Edition revisits the early construction of environmental crime as a subject of study and addresses new and emerging subjects of study, specifically focused on the United States but including research from Europe, Australia, and around the world. Comprehensive and interdisciplinary in its focus, this Second Edition is written by a collection of experts in the field and presents themes related to the social, cultural, political, economic, scientific and legal contexts of environmental crime. Each chapter includes key terms, review questions, discussion questions, and references. The accessible style and easy-to-read format make Environmental Crime, Second Edition ideal for anyone from any discipline, with little to no exposure to the subject matter. New material added to the Second Edition: • New chapter on the relationship between social and political activism and legislative change • New chapter on crime theories specifically focused on environmental issues • Updates on the history and legislation • Updates on definition and related terms • Updates on state and local issues • Updates on police, courts, sentencing and punishments • New online link with additional resources for students Key Features: * Includes contributions from nationally and internationally known experts on the topic of environmental crime * Provides a comprehensive focus on the United States laws and policies related to environmental law, violations, punishments and sanctions * Includes a historical review of law creation and activist protests focused on organizing and changing laws around environmental protections and environmental harms * Interdisciplinary in its focus, the text includes biological sciences, history and political debates, economics, media, crime theory and its application, in addition to sections on international constructions of environmental crime and future research directions Instructor Resources: * Test Bank * Microsoft PowerPoint slides

Ecological Regions of North America

Ecological Regions of North America
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 92
Release: 1997
Genre: Biogeography
ISBN:

This volume represents a first attempt at holistically classifying and mapping ecological regions across all three countries of the North American continent. A common analytical methodology is used to examine North American ecology at multiple scales, from large continental ecosystems to subdivisions of these that correlate more detailed physical and biological settings with human activities on two levels of successively smaller units. The volume begins with an overview of North America from an ecological perspective, concepts of ecological regionalization. This is followed by descriptions of the 15 broad ecological regions, including information on physical and biological setting and human activities. The final section presents case studies in applications of the ecological characterization methodology to environmental issues. The appendix includes a list of common and scientific names of selected species characteristic of the ecological regions.