Violence Across Borders: Continuities of Harm within a Socio-Structural Analysis of Latinx Immigrant Health and Well-Being

• In Event: 40869 - Racial and Ethnic Inequality - New Frontiers of Research

Abstract

This paper examines border violence as a systemic and enduring force that extends beyond physical sites of enforcement, shaping the lives, mobility, and well-being of Latinx immigrants long after migration. While borders are often framed as territorial barriers, this paper argues that they function as multi-scalar systems of exclusion embedded in law, surveillance, economic precarity, and racialized spatial control. Drawing from critical race and border studies, structural violence, and territorial stigma frameworks, we analyze how border regimes produce and attach stigma to migrants, shaping their mobility, exposure to violence, and access to resources in urban settings.

Using 30 semi-structured interviews with Latinx immigrants, conducted as part of a long-term community-academic mental health research partnership, this study highlights three key ways in which border violence operates beyond geographic boundaries: (1) through pre-migration violence and structural precarity, where economic, political, and state violence shape immigrants’ vulnerability before and after migration; (2) through embodied narratives of harm and belonging, as immigrants internalize, contest, and navigate exclusion; and (3) through spatial exclusion and constrained mobility, where territorial stigma relegates immigrants to high-surveillance, under-resourced environments, reinforcing exposure to violence, perceptions of insecurity and restricting access to care.

This paper contributes to sociological research on structural and systemic violence and racialized mobility. By integrating an analysis of structural inequality, stigmatized geographies, and survival and meaning-making strategies, we reveal how immigrants both navigate and resist exclusion and contest imposed racialized hierarchies border regimes uphold. Our findings challenge dominant narratives that view border violence as a singular event and instead demonstrate how it functions as an ongoing system of control that shapes immigrant identity, health, and mobility. This work offers critical insights for further understanding migration, race, and inequality beyond legal status, emphasizing the need for policies and community-based strategies that dismantle exclusionary border regimes and promote immigrant justice.

Authors

• Susana Echeverri Herrera, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque

• Alejandra Guadalupe Lemus, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque

• Bianca Ruiz-Negrón, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque

• Janet Ramirez

• Daisy Ramos, University of New Mexico

• Dulce Medina

• Julia Meredith Hess, University of New Mexico

• Jessica Rose Goodkind, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque