The U.S.-Mexico border

• In Event: Mexico´s intermestic affairs

Abstract

The U.S. border with Mexico is one of the longest and most patrolled borders in the world. Increasingly restrictive U.S. border policies, designed to regulate the regional markets for labor and drugs, have been largely ineffective to stop drug smuggling and irregular migration and extremely costly for the Mexican criminal justice system and for U.S.-Mexican relations. Why do states maintain these policies?
In this paper, I analyze the rationale and consequences of U.S. border policies to argue that they have become an important part of U.S. domestic politics and especially after 9/11, central to address U.S. security anxieties. Arguing “threats to national security”, the U.S government has bolstered surveillance and anti-drug law enforcement at its southwestern border to stop drug smugglers from entering U.S. territory. Considered a means to prevent terrorists from crossing U.S. frontiers, “sealing the border” gained a new legitimacy to stop not only drug smugglers but irregular migration. Border policies have also become part of U.S. migration policy and anti-immigration sentiments as instruments to improve public security. Consequently, policy-makers can always claim that border policies are necessary for security reasons and blatantly ignore their shortcomings. To the extent that the costs of these policies have predominantly fallen on Mexico, there is little concern on the U.S. side for their external impact. As a result of U.S. “domesticism”, bordering on the United States has become problematic for Mexico.

Author

• Maria Celia Toro, El Colegio de México