Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond

Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond
Author: Joseph Nevins
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 623
Release: 2010-06-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 113515922X

This is a major revision and update of Nevins’ earlier classic and is an ideal text for use with undergraduate students in a wide variety of courses on immigration, transnational issues, and the politics of race, inclusion and exclusion. Not only has the author brought his subject completely up to date, but as a "case" of increasing economic integration and liberalization along with growing immigration control, the US / Mexico Border and its history is put in a wider global context of similar development s elsewhere. A companion website is available at www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415996945. The Companion Website contains key U.S. government documents related to the boundary and immigration enforcement strategy; reports from non-partisan research entities and non-governmental organizations that evaluate enforcement from a civil and human rights perspective; and studies that investigate migrant deaths in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. There are also photo essays, including one related to deportations and another to California’s Border Field State Park, for which the site also includes historic photos and other resources. Finally, the site has links to websites—from U.S. government agencies involved in boundary and immigrant policing, to humanitarian and border, migrant, and human rights organizations.

Documenting the Undocumented

Documenting the Undocumented
Author: Marta Caminero-Santangelo
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2017-10-10
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0813063361

Looking at the work of Junot Díaz, Cristina García, Julia Alvarez, and other Latino/a authors who are U.S. citizens, Marta Caminero-Santangelo examines how writers are increasingly expressing their solidarity with undocumented immigrants. Through storytelling, these writers create community and a sense of peoplehood that includes non-citizen Latino/as. This volume also foregrounds the narratives of unauthorized migrants themselves, showing how their stories are emerging into the public sphere. Immigration and citizenship are multifaceted issues, and the voices are myriad. They challenge common interpretations of "illegal" immigration, explore inevitable traumas and ethical dilemmas, protest their own silencing in immigration debates, and even capitalize on the topic for the commercial market. Yet these texts all seek to affect political discourse by advancing the possibility of empathy across lines of ethnicity and citizenship status. As border enforcement strategies escalate along with political rhetoric, detentions, and deaths, these counternarratives are more significant than ever before, and their perspectives cannot be ignored. What we are witnessing, argues Caminero-Santangelo, is a mass mobilization of stories. This growing body of literature is critical to understanding not only the Latino/a immigrant experience but also alternative visions of nation and belonging.

Border Security

Border Security
Author: James R. Phelps
Publisher: Carolina Academic Press LLC
Total Pages: 524
Release: 2017
Genre: Border security
ISBN: 9781611638219

Border Patrol Nation

Border Patrol Nation
Author: Todd Miller
Publisher: City Lights Publishers
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2014-03-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0872866327

"In his scathing and deeply reported examination of the U.S. Border Patrol, Todd Miller argues that the agency has gone rogue since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, trampling on the dignity and rights of the undocumented with military-style tactics … Miller's book arrives at a moment when it appears that part of the Homeland Security apparatus is backpedaling by promising to tone down its tactics, maybe prodded by investigative journalism, maybe by the revelations of NSA leaker Edward Snowden … Border Patrol is quite possibly the right book at the right time … "—Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times "At the start of his unsettling and important new book, Border Patrol Nation, Miller observes that these days 'it is common to see the Border Patrol in places—such as Erie, Pennsylvania; Rochester, New York; or Forks, Washington—where only fifteen years ago it would have seemed far-fetched, if not unfathomable.'”—Barbara Spindel, Christian Science Monitor "Miller’s approach in Border Patrol Nation is to offer a glimpse into the secretive operations of the Border Patrol, reporting with a journalist’s objectivity and nose for a good story. Miller’s book is full of facts, and it’s clear he’s outraged, but he gives voices to people on every side of the issue … Miller’s book is a fascinating read … and bring the work of Susan Orlean to mind."—Amanda Eyre Ward, Kirkus Reviews "Todd Miller's invaluable and gripping book, Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security is the story of how this country’s borders are being transformed into up-armored, heavily militarized zones run by a border-industrial complex. It's an achievement and an eye opener."—Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch "What Jeremy Scahill was to Blackwater, Todd Miller is to the U.S. Border Patrol!"—Tom Miller, author, On the Border: Portraits of America's Southwestern Frontier "Todd Miller has entered a secret world, and he has gone deep … Powerful."—Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil's Highway: A True Story "Journalist Miller tells an alarming story of U.S. Border Patrol and Homeland Security's ever-widening reach into the lives of American citizens and legal immigrants as well as the undocumented. In addition to readers interested in immigration issues, those concerned about the NSA’s privacy violations will likely be even more shocked by the actions of Homeland Security."—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review Armed authorities watch from a military-grade surveillance tower as lines of people stream toward the security checkpoint, tickets in hand, anxious and excited to get through the gate. Few seem to notice or care that the US Border Patrol is monitoring the Super Bowl, as they have for years, one of the many ways that forces created to police the borders are now being used, in an increasingly militarized fashion, to survey and monitor the whole of American society. In fast-paced prose, Todd Miller sounds an alarm as he chronicles the changing landscape. Traveling the country—and beyond—to speak with the people most involved with and impacted by the Border Patrol, he combines these first-hand encounters with careful research to expose a vast and booming industry for high-end technology, weapons, surveillance, and prisons. While politicians and corporations reap substantial profits, the experiences of millions of men, women, and children point to staggering humanitarian consequences. Border Patrol Nation shows us in stark relief how the entire country has become a militarized border zone, with consequences that affect us all. Todd Miller has worked on and written about US border issues for over fifteen years.

Operation Gatekeeper

Operation Gatekeeper
Author: Joseph Nevins
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2002
Genre: Border patrols
ISBN: 0415931053

Provides an immensely readable account of what has become an increasingly central concern for developed nations: keeping third world immigrants out.

Targeting Immigrants

Targeting Immigrants
Author: Jonathan Xavier Inda
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2008-04-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1405150130

This book is concerned with the government of “illegal” immigration since the passage of the U.S. Immigration Act of 1965, exploring how certain mentalities and intellectual machineries have rendered illegal immigrants as targets of government. Examines how various authorities have created knowledge about and constructed “illegal” immigration as an ethical problem. Analyzes the tactics that have been deployed to govern immigration, particularly at the US-Mexico border. Using an ethnographic approach, draws on primary source materials – including government publications, archival documents, newspapers, and popular magazines. Studies measures (e.g. Operation Gatekeeper and Operation Hold-the-Line) for reforming the conduct of “illegal” immigrants in order to forestall illicit border crossings. Frames the study of immigration within Foucauldian theories of governmentality. Highlights the role of numbers and statistics in constructing the “illegal” immigrant.

Border Games

Border Games
Author: Peter Andreas
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801487569

Yet the unprecedented buildup of border policing has taken place in an era otherwise defined by the opening of the border, most notably through NAFTA. This contrast creates a borderless economy with a barricaded border.".

The Line Becomes a River

The Line Becomes a River
Author: Francisco Cantú
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2018-02-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0735217726

NAMED A TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018 BY NPR and THE WASHINGTON POST WINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN CURRENT INTEREST FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE NONFICTION AWARD The instant New York Times bestseller, "A must-read for anyone who thinks 'build a wall' is the answer to anything." --Esquire For Francisco Cantú, the border is in the blood: his mother, a park ranger and daughter of a Mexican immigrant, raised him in the scrublands of the Southwest. Driven to understand the hard realities of the landscape he loves, Cantú joins the Border Patrol. He and his partners learn to track other humans under blistering sun and through frigid nights. They haul in the dead and deliver to detention those they find alive. Plagued by a growing awareness of his complicity in a dehumanizing enterprise, he abandons the Patrol for civilian life. But when an immigrant friend travels to Mexico to visit his dying mother and does not return, Cantú discovers that the border has migrated with him, and now he must know the full extent of the violence it wreaks, on both sides of the line.

Beyond Smoke and Mirrors

Beyond Smoke and Mirrors
Author: Douglas S. Massey
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2002-03-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1610443829

Migration between Mexico and the United States is part of a historical process of increasing North American integration. This process acquired new momentum with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, which lowered barriers to the movement of goods, capital, services, and information. But rather than include labor in this new regime, the United States continues to resist the integration of the labor markets of the two countries. Instead of easing restrictions on Mexican labor, the United States has militarized its border and adopted restrictive new policies of immigrant disenfranchisement. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors examines the devastating impact of these immigration policies on the social and economic fabric of the Mexico and the United States, and calls for a sweeping reform of the current system. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors shows how U.S. immigration policies enacted between 1986–1996—largely for symbolic domestic political purposes—harm the interests of Mexico, the United States, and the people who migrate between them. The costs have been high. The book documents how the massive expansion of border enforcement has wasted billions of dollars and hundreds of lives, yet has not deterred increasing numbers of undocumented immigrants from heading north. The authors also show how the new policies unleashed a host of unintended consequences: a shift away from seasonal, circular migration toward permanent settlement; the creation of a black market for Mexican labor; the transformation of Mexican immigration from a regional phenomenon into a broad social movement touching every region of the country; and even the lowering of wages for legal U.S. residents. What had been a relatively open and benign labor process before 1986 was transformed into an exploitative underground system of labor coercion, one that lowered wages and working conditions of undocumented migrants, legal immigrants, and American citizens alike. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors offers specific proposals for repairing the damage. Rather than denying the reality of labor migration, the authors recommend regularizing it and working to manage it so as to promote economic development in Mexico, minimize costs and disruptions for the United States, and maximize benefits for all concerned. This book provides an essential "user's manual" for readers seeking a historical, theoretical, and substantive understanding of how U.S. policy on Mexican immigration evolved to its current dysfunctional state, as well as how it might be fixed.