Vol. 28, No. 2 (2001)

This issue examines U.S.-Mexico border policing in terms of the effects of U.S. immigration and border policy on unauthorized migrants and on the well-being of U.S. citizens. The Southwest border has been the key locus of militarized enforcement in the U.S., 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 U.S. employers and furthers the divide between undocumented workers and U.S.-born workers. Among the disturbing consequences of militarization in the U.S. 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).