A “Full-Blown Public Health Disaster” at the US/Mexico Border? “Illegality,” Child Migration, and Discourses of Contagion

• In Event: Im/migrant Suffering: “Illegality,” Health and Vulnerabilities in the U.S. and South of the Border

Abstract

In summer 2014, President Obama declared an “urgent humanitarian situation” along the United States/Mexico border after a sudden surge of unaccompanied, undocumented children crossing into the country. Most came from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, fleeing violence and/or seeking to reunite with family members already in the US. The flow of crossings concentrated in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) sector of south Texas, affecting border communities with longstanding immigrant ties. This presented specific political and logistical concerns, despite the fact that these communities are transit and not destination sites for Central American migrants. In this paper, through an analysis of media accounts and policy debates as well as on-the-ground ethnographic fieldwork in the RGV from 2013-2015, we examine how migrant children were constructed as potential disease-carriers in order to reinforce exclusionary policies regarding access. Was this indeed, as headlines suggested, a “medical crisis,” or perhaps even a “full-blown public health disaster?” This framing followed a historical pattern of applying xenophobic discourses of contagion to new and unwelcome immigrant groups. However, we argue, there are also unique patterns in and implications of this case of symbolic violence in its application to unaccompanied children fleeing violence. Beyond the use of such discursive framing to marginalize child migrants and further emphasize their position as “illegal” and alien others, panic around alleged “contagion” directly underscored calls for additional securitization of the US/Mexico border. This contributes an understanding of how structural vulnerability and symbolic violence intersect to augment migrant suffering and influence border securitization policies.

Authors

• Heide Castaneda, University of South Florida

• Milena A Melo, University of Texas at San Antonio