O ri g in a l A r ti c le
“ T o o B a d I ’ m No t a n O b v i o u s
C it izen ”: T he e f f e cts of r a cia l i z e d US
i m m i g r a t i o n en f o r c e m e n t p r a c t i c e s
o n s e c o n d - g e n e r a t i o n Me x i c a n yo u t h
C h r i st i n a M. Ge tr i ch
University of New Mexico, New Mexico
Abstract Over the last two decades, border residents have come under increased
surveillance during stepped-up policing of the US-Mexico border. Second-generation
Mexican youth – the US born children of immigrants – should be insulated from
mistreatment by immigration officials. However, racialized immigration enforcement
practices target these teenagers who are coming of age in this borderland milieu.
Drawing from extensive fieldwork conducted with 54 teenagers in San Diego, this
article describes how immigration enforcement practices reinforce a racialized form of
belonging that has negative effects on youth, but also highlights how these youth deploy
strategies of resistance to contest them.
Latino Studies (2013) 11, 462–482. doi:10.1057/lst.2013.28
Keywords: immigration enforcement; border surveillance; racialization; identity; social
belonging; Mexican youth
Introduction
1 All names of
people and places
are pseudonyms
used to protect the
Like many residents of San Diego and Tijuana entitled to cross the US-Mexico
border “legally,” 16-year old Paloma Santos1 frequently shuffles between different family members’ houses in the twin border cities. Paloma describes the
process of crossing: “The [U.S.] immigration officials are really mean every single
time I cross. They treat me like I shouldn’t be coming here. I guess I must look real
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435 Latino Studies
www.palgrave-journals.com/lst/
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
Racialized immigration enforcement and Mexican youth
Mexican or something. But I don’t know see [why they] ask so many questions
if I have a paper that says I’m an American citizen.” As citizens by birthright,
second-generation Mexican youth2 – the US-born children of first-generation
immigrants – should enjoy the full range of rights and benefits associated with US
citizenship, including that their membership go unquestioned.3 However, in the
borderland milieu, residents of all immigration statuses have come under the everintensifying gaze of various enforcement agencies during stepped-up border
policing over the last two decades (Nevins, 2002; Inda, 2006a; Dunn, 2010).
The sociopolitical category of the “illegal immigrant” – signifying a lawbreaker who does not have “legal” permission to reside within the territorial
United States – provides the justification for the surveillance of all individuals
who are seen as potentially “illegal” (DeGenova, 2002; Inda, 2006a). But because
“illegal immigrant” is a social construction, its boundaries are not clear in
practice, even to the immigration officials who are tasked with enforcement.
Immigration enforcement activities therefore, often extend beyond undocumented immigrants to target non-white US citizens, including borderland teenagers.
These teens recount their sometimes-frequent and generally unpleasant encounters with officials who repeatedly question their membership, as Paloma
described, and require them to prove that they legitimately belong in the United
States. Such encounters make clear that borders involve not merely delineating
and protecting state sovereignty but are also central in demarcating the social
boundaries of citizenship and belonging (Behdad, 2005, 145).
In this article, I examine immigration enforcement in the San Diego–Tijuana
region and how this system of surveillance has infiltrated the lives of teenagers –
an understudied segment of borderlanders (Bejarano, 2005; Aiken and Plows,
2010; Bejarano, 2010; Mendoza Inzunza and Fernández Huerta, 2010).
I demonstrate how these teenagers experience, understand and negotiate such
encounters with immigration enforcement. My focus is on the quotidian presence
of the state in the lives of borderlanders – and the ways that these routine practices
collectively contribute to the racialization of non-white US citizens in the border
region (Romero, 2006; Rosas, 2006b; Goldsmith et al, 2009). While the nominal
purpose of border policing is to monitor the international geopolitical border, these
border enforcement policies and practices reinforce a racialized form of belonging
that has negative implications on second-generation youth. Yet, within this
context, second-generation youth have also cultivated strategies of transformative
resistance that allow them to contest the infringement of their rights.
T h e E s c a l a t i o n o f I m m i g ra ti o n E nforcement in the US-Mexico
B o rd erla nd s a n d Be yo n d
“Border control” has emerged as a normal facet of life in the San Diego–Tijuana
region; however, it was not always so ever-present a phenomenon. Starting in the
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
anonymity of
research
participants.
2 The second
generation is
comprised of
those who were
born in the United
States to
immigrant
parents. The term
1.5 generation
refers to children
born abroad but
educated (partially
or completely) in
the United States.
Hereafter, I refer
to both 1.5- and
second-generation
youth by the label
second generation.
I use the label
Mexican because
most of the teens
in my study most
frequently selfidentified as such.
The teens’
predominant use
of the label
Mexican is
significant in that
it encompasses all
the people of
Mexican descent
in their lives,
regardless of
immigration
status.
3 By stating that
second-generation
youth are entitled
to these rights and
protections as US
citizens, I am not
suggesting that
undocumented
immigrants should
be excluded from
them. Indeed as
Dunn (2010, 10)
463
Getrich
argues, an
overriding focus
on citizenship and
national
sovereignty at the
border obscures
the human rights,
well-being and
dignity of noncitizens. Given
that my research
participants were
largely citizens,
though, the
purpose of the
article is to
demonstrate the
effects of border
policing policies
and practices on
US citizens of
Mexican descent
in addition to
their
undocumented
friends and family
members.
464
early 1920s and continuing through the 1970s, the border was essentially a
“revolving door,” with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
alternating periods of letting immigrants through and deporting them en masse
depending on the needs of US economic interests (Cockcroft, 1986; Dunn, 1996,
11; Nevins, 2002, 35). However, since its establishment in 1924, the US Border
Patrol has perpetuated violence against local border populations with the initial
interest in protecting Anglo-American settlements and subsequently under the
guise of controlling human mobility at the border (Hernández, 2010, 19). In
addition to policing individuals of Mexican descent, Border Patrol agents
subjected Native Americans to early forms of state violence (20) – and continue
to do so as border enforcement infringes on the mobility and rights of tribes with
members on both sides of the border, such as the Tohono O’odham and the
Kumeyaay (Luna-Firebaugh, 2002).
Explicit border control strategies were first implemented in the late 1970s/early
1980s through low-intensity conflict (LIC) doctrine techniques (Dunn, 1996).
LIC doctrine was created to establish social control over civilian populations in
Latin American and other “third world” countries through the incremental
introduction of force and coordinated efforts between police, paramilitary and
military forces (4). The adaptation of LIC techniques to the US-Mexico border
resulted in its steady militarization throughout the 1980s and early 1990s (3). The
INS launched targeted operations, including Operation Gatekeeper in Southern
California on 1 October 1994. Gatekeeper aimed to “close” the revolving door
by forcing migrant traffic from dense urban areas to more remote terrain where
crossing was less visible through an approach called “prevention through
deterrence” (Nevins, 2002; Dunn, 2010). Gatekeeper flourished because of an
infusion of resources and technology that included three-tiered steel fencing,
stadium-style lighting, motion and sound detectors, infrared night scopes, and
military-style helicopter patrols designed to reach remote locations (Nevins,
2002; Inda, 2006a, b; Dunn, 2010). In addition, federal agents became ever-more
reliant upon databases that monitored individuals’ immigration transactions,
created automated fingerprint records, consolidated intelligence at ports of entry
and linked immigration information to the national criminal database (Heyman,
1999, 433–434).
Other border control operations that debuted elsewhere along the border in the
mid-1990s, such as operations Hold-the-Line, Safeguard and Rio Grande, have
been described (along with Gatekeeper) as “spectacles” (DeGenova, 2002, 436)
because they represent a symbolic show of force as opposed to effective policy
initiatives (Andreas, 2000; DeGenova, 2002, 436; Nevins, 2002; Dunn 2010, 2).
Despite the dramatics of these operations, border control is recognized as largely
ineffectual (Heyman, 1999, 295; Heyman, 1998, 162), a poor deterrent for
migrants (Andreas and Biersteker, 2003, 4), and an enormous waste of taxpayer
money (Massey et al, 2002, 140). Ultimately, these border operations have raised
the costs and risks associated with crossing, forced migrants to be ever-more
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
Racialized immigration enforcement and Mexican youth
dependent on human smugglers, and made smuggling practices more dangerous
and deadly (Heyman, 1998, 164; Cornelius, 2001, 667; Rosas, 2006b).
Immigrant deaths have skyrocketed, with a marked increase in deaths attributable to such environmental causes as dehydration, heat stroke or hypothermia
(Eschbach et al, 1999; Cornelius, 2001). The strategy has resulted in 4600
recorded deaths between 1994 and 2007 (Dunn, 2010, 2) though the actual
number is estimated to be much higher.
Border surveillance efforts intensified after the events of September 11, 2001,
when immigrants were redefined as a problem of national security (Jonas, 2006,
9). Indicative of this fusion between national security and immigration, INS was
absorbed within the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in
March 2003. The “war on terror” soon became a war on all immigrants. Racial
profiling in law enforcement came to be viewed as an acceptable means of
protecting the homeland, despite its detrimental effects on Latino and AfricanAmerican communities (Hernández, 2008).
The “immigrants as a threat to national security” narrative became reified in
federal legislation in the decade following 9/11, such as the 2001 PATRIOT Act,
which authorized federal officials to detain a broad class of non-citizens without
legal review and immediate disclosure of specific charges (Coleman, 2007, 60).
The 2005 Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act
(H.R. 4437) sought to criminalize undocumented immigrants and make their
presence in the United States a felony instead of a civil offense. Though H.R. 4437
was defeated in the US Senate, such legislative initiatives are part of a larger – and
growing – trend: the criminalization of immigrants (Coleman, 2007, 56), which
also involves the expansion of immigrant detention, the fastest growing form of
incarceration (Hernández, 2008, 36).
Another facet of the expanding criminalization of immigrants is the devolution
of immigration enforcement from federal immigration officials to state entities
and local police officers (Rosas, 2006a; Inda, 2006a; Coleman, 2007). In fact,
there have been a record number of deportations under the Obama administration, including through the controversial Secure Communities program, which
checks the immigration status of individuals fingerprinted at state and local jails
and notifies immigration authorities accordingly (Bennett, 2011). The devolution
of power to states solidified most conspicuously in the form of Arizona’s Senate
Bill 1070, passed in April 2010. SB 1070 aimed to identify, prosecute and deport
illegal immigrants in Arizona. It granted law-enforcement officers the ability to
ask about a person’s legal status and stipulated that a person’s failure to carry
immigration documents was itself a crime. Critics identified SB 1070 as the
broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations, arguing that it also
sanctioned racial profiling on the part of local officers (Archibold, 2010).
A December 2011 US Department of Justice report documented a pervasive
pattern of “unconstitutional policing” of Latinos for detention and arrest in
Arizona’s Maricopa County, despite the fact that SB 1070 was not implemented
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
465
Getrich
because it was blocked by a federal judge the day before it was to go into effect
(Lacey, 2011).
Though the US Supreme Court struck down three provisions as violations of
the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution in June 2012, SB 1070 continued to
serve as a model for other states (Gorman, 2010) – including Alabama, Georgia,
Indiana, South Carolina and Utah – drawing immigration enforcement efforts away
from the border itself into local communities nationwide. In 2012 alone, state
legislatures introduced nearly 1000 bills and enacted 267 laws and resolutions –
many with a restrictionist tenor (National Council of State Legislatures, 2013).
In fact, in the absence of broader federal immigration reform, interior
enforcement operations have escalated dramatically – and are predicted to
continue to do so (Coleman, 2007). These interior operations, including both
workplace and home raids, initially increased under the Bush administration and
continue to do so under Obama. The raids have negatively affected mixed
immigration status families, as undocumented parents have been summarily
deported and separated from their citizen-children without being able to ensure
that the children are properly cared for (Capps et al, 2007). In addition, a March
2010 DHS report demonstrated that officials carrying out these localized raids
are not always properly trained; consequently, detainees’ civil rights are not
systematically protected (Preston, 2010).
Border enforcement has formed the centerpiece of US immigration policy for
decades (Dunn, 2010). However, as enforcement operations continue to expand
to the US interior, it is of growing importance to examine the effects of these
enforcement activities on local populations – both immigrant and non-immigrant. Because these enforcement efforts have been operating in border communities for nearly two decades, they provide an important site from which to
observe and theorize about the consequences of this strengthening surveillance
regime (Heyman, 1999, 430) on local populations, including US citizens.
Theorizing R ac ialized Immi gration Enforcement
Despite being predicated on principles of equality and fairness, US citizenship has
always been infused with social hierarchy, produced and continually redefined by
the state (DeGenova and Ramos-Zayas, 2003, 213). From the beginning, whiteness served as a core component of US citizenship and was reinforced through the
law (Haney López, 1996, 2) as racial/ethnic groups like African Americans,
Native Americans and Asian Americans were systematically excluded from being
citizens. The institution of US citizenship itself has thus served as a mode for
producing social inequality (DeGenova and Ramos-Zayas, 2003, 3).
Citizenship is also intricately connected with US immigration law, which has
produced sociopolitical categories like citizens, who are the legitimate members
466
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
Racialized immigration enforcement and Mexican youth
of the nation-state, and “illegal” immigrants, who are not. Immigrant “illegality”
is, in fact, inseparable from citizenship (DeGenova, 2002, 436); it is a political
identity that encapsulates the relationship of immigrants to the state and is
produced by the legal system (DeGenova, 2002, 422; Rosas, 2006b, 404). The
academic examination of immigrant “illegality” emerged through ethnographically grounded studies of the everyday lives and experiences of undocumented immigrants (DeGenova, 2002, 420) as they navigated the social space of
“illegality” in distinct ways (Coutin, 2000; DeGenova and Ramos-Zayas, 2003;
DeGenova, 2005). The category of the “illegal” has also been reified in public
discourse, in which Mexicans in particular are portrayed as the quintessential
“illegal aliens” (Chavez, 2008, 3), a term that is particularly infused with
racialized difference (DeGenova and Ramos-Zayas, 2003, 3).
“Illegality” is not merely an abstract condition but has emerged as a result
of the deliberate set of tactics the US nation-state has deployed to create and
sustain the legally vulnerable condition of deportability (DeGenova, 2005, 8). As
Romero (2008, 28) points out, because immigration status is a social construction, it is “not complete without policing and surveillance.” Rosas (2006b, 404)
expands upon “illegality” through his concept of “policeability,” which characterizes a system of racialized management through which both the undocumented and “those who resemble them” are subject to surveillance and statemandated policing. Policeability more explicitly highlights the normative notions
of citizenship and whiteness in the borderlands (404).
These tactics of policeability result in a racialized law enforcement approach in
which physical appearance serves as a way of controlling certain racial and ethnic
groups (Romero, 2008, 27). This “form of racial governance” (Rosas, 2006a,
340) was codified in the 1975 Supreme Court decision in United States v.
Brignoni-Ponce, which established that “Mexican appearance” was sufficient
grounds for citizenship inspection (Romero, 2006, 453; Goldsmith et al, 2009,
97). The decision in effect established that a person’s appearance could serve as
“reasonable suspicion” or “probable cause” and in so doing set up a system in
which Mexicans and others are denied equal protection under the law (Romero,
2006, 451). These repressive forms of violence are justified and legitimated in the
name of fighting illegal immigration (Goldsmith et al, 2009, 117).
Romero points out that immigration research has typically ignored the costs
paid by Latinos who are implicated by US immigration policies (Romero, 2006,
450). Indeed, the surveillance of citizenship is most highly concentrated in poor and
working-class Latino neighborhoods (Romero, 2006, 453; Goldsmith et al, 2009,
96). The scale of impact of racialized immigration law enforcement is elusive, as
immigration agencies do not collect systematic data on citizens and legal residents
who are stopped and searched (Romero, 2006, 453). Human rights groups,
however, have been documenting charges of violence and harassment against
immigration authorities – including perpetuated against US citizens of color – since
the border operations were introduced in the 1990s (see Getrich et al, 2000).
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
467
Getrich
Scholars have also been documenting interactions between immigration
officials and local border community residents. Romero examined a high-profile
immigration raid in Chandler, Arizona, demonstrating how it functioned as a
policing practice to reinforce the subordinated status of working-class US citizens
and legal residents of Mexican descent (Romero, 2006, 450–451; Romero,
2008). Romero and her colleagues also found a systematic pattern of immigration
officials’ mistreatment of residents of all immigration statuses in their survey of
South Tucson, Arizona households (Goldsmith et al, 2009). In his examination of
the longitudinal effects of Operation Blockade in El Paso, Dunn (2010, 182)
argues that the operation actually alleviated some of the aggressive enforcement
practices that pre-dated it in South El Paso and neighborhoods near the Rio
Grande River, but that these racialized enforcement practices have more recently
re-emerged.
This article documents racialized immigration enforcement practices in San
Diego, one of the most militarized segments of the border (16). It is within this
context of racialized immigration enforcement that second-generation youth
in San Diego are coming of age and trying to make sense of who they are and
where they belong. Social belonging, however, is dialectically determined by the
nation-state and its inhabitants (Espiritu, 2003; Ong, 2003) – both “legal” and
“illegal” – meaning that it is important to understand both how nation-states
police and attempt to enforce belonging but also how people in turn respond to
these enforcement efforts.
C o n du c t i n g Re s e a rc h wi th B o rd e r l a nd T e e n a g e r s
This article draws upon fieldwork conducted in a southeast San Diego neighborhood primarily between July 2005 and August 2006. The neighborhood,
which has a rich history as one of San Diego’s oldest communities, is located in
the shadow of downtown San Diego and within 15 miles of the US-Mexico
border. The hub of the neighborhood is a large park where numerous social
events take place, ranging from celebrations of Mexican Independence Day to
low-rider car shows to protests on social issues like immigration. An unmistakable spirit of Mexican pride is evidenced in brightly colored murals that display
the red, white and green of the Mexican flag and imagery of Aztec warriors and
Mexican folk heroes.
Despite its rich history and vibrant character, the neighborhood also faces
challenges. Public safety is a concern for residents, with homelessness, drug use
and gang activity making the park and neighborhood more broadly somewhat
unsafe, especially for children. Residents also contend with industrialized air
pollution, substandard housing, overcrowded schools, and inadequate health
care and social services. The median household income of the neighborhood was
468
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
Racialized immigration enforcement and Mexican youth
estimated to around $27,000 in 2010, with approximately 40 per cent of the
population living below the poverty level (SANDAG, 2011). Neighborhood
residents are overwhelmingly (86 per cent) Latino; 76 per cent of residents aged
5 years and above reported using Spanish as the primary language at home
(2011).
I conducted research with 54 second-generation Mexican teenagers and
their parents4 who live in the barrio. These teens were all part of mixed-status
families – families that contain some combination of US citizens, legal immigrants
and/or undocumented immigrants (Fix and Zimmerman, 2001). At the turn of
the twenty-first century, one in 10 US children belonged to a mixed-status family;
in California, that number was even higher, at three in 10 (Fix et al, 2001).
Most of the teens’ parents had migrated from Mexico to the United States in the
1980s – 1990s; the majority of them were undocumented at some point, though
many had subsequently become lawful permanent residents or US citizens.
The teens all participated in an afterschool program at a community-based
non-profit where for 15 months I tutored and mentored them, joining in their
daily activities and participating in other off-site special events outside of the
neighborhood, like community service projects and college visit trips. In addition
to participant observation, I utilized semi-structured interviews, focus groups, a
survey, freelisting activities and Photovoice5 with the teens and conducted a
household survey with a parent/guardian from each family. These methods
allowed me to understand more about such domains as the teens’ household
composition and family characteristics, neighborhood dynamics, school and work
experiences, friendships, ethnicity and identity, language use, relationship with family
members in Mexico, participation in transnational life, immigration, border enforcement, and citizenship/belonging. This article draws particularly on interviews, the teen
survey, participant observation and Photovoice, which were the primary methods that
generated insights about their experiences with border enforcement.
Navigating the “E ve ry da yn e s s ” of State Power at Border
C r o s s i n g s a n d Be y o n d
Border enforcement activities strongly infiltrated the everyday lives of the
borderland teenagers with whom I conducted research. Heyman (1998, 166)
uses the term cotidianidad (everydayness)6 to encapsulate this form of state
power – the constant awareness of the presence of immigration officials in border
communities and the accompanying wariness borderlanders have of them. In this
section, I describe ethnographically the teens’ everyday encounters with state
power in the form of immigration enforcement – both at border inspection
points at the international boundary as well as during everyday life in the
neighborhood – and explore their understandings of these episodes.
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
4 Forty-two of these
teens were high
school students,
while the
remaining 12 were
college students
who were in high
school when I met
them in 2004. In
this article, I
identify the teens
by the age that
they were during
my primary period
of research in
2005–2006.
5 Freelisting is a
technique in
which a concept is
introduced and
participants
generate lists of
words that they
associate with that
concept. I
conducted
freelisting as a
means of
understanding
how the teens
understood
concepts such as
citizenship,
immigrant and
citizen.
Photovoice is a
technique where
community
members
photographically
document their
everyday life
conditions in
order to promote
critical dialogue
469
Getrich
about issues of
concern to the
community
(Wang and Burris,
1994, 171).
6 According to
Heyman (1998,
166), the term
cotidianidad was
coined by the
Immigration Law
Enforcement
Monitoring
Project of the
American Friends
Service
Committee
(AFSC). AFSC is a
Quaker-founded
human rights
organization that
promotes social
justice throughout
the world. I
conducted my
Master’s research
with AFSC’s USMexico Border
Program in San
Diego in 2000.
7 Though Lugo
(2000) critiques
the use of the
academic and
theoretical phrase
“border
crossing,” I use
this terminology
because it is, in
fact, the way that
many borderland
residents refer to
it.
8 The teens
reported these
reasons for going
to Mexico and the
frequency with
which they
participated in
these
transnational
470
“When I was younger, I ’d a lways g et terrible butterfl ies in my
s t o m a c h be c a u s e I wa s s o n e r vo u s”: Immigration inspections
at border crossings
Though few of the teens I surveyed cross the border literally every day, crossing is
for them a fairly commonplace experience.7 They participate in transnational life
by visiting family members, celebrating holidays, eating out, going to parties,
shopping, seeing movies, playing soccer, seeing bullfights, going to concerts and
visiting the doctor/dentist.8 Older teens who can drive go to “T.J.”9 even more
frequently. Most cross the international US-Mexico boundary at the San Ysidro
or Otay Mesa ports of entry10 – the physical checkpoints through which cargo
and visitors entering the United States pass (Heyman, 2004, 303).
Border crossings at the ports of entry are managed through inspection stations
where decisions are made about whether particular individuals may – or may
not – enter the territorial boundaries of the nation-state. Border crossers pass
through the international boundary (in both directions) either on foot or by car.
Walkers are subject to an individual inspection; if a set of individuals are together
in a car, the car as a unit is inspected. To reach this inspection point, the border
crosser waits in a line until s/he reaches an agent, located inside a building
(if crossing on foot) or in a booth (if crossing by car). Arriving at the front of the
line, crossers encounter Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, who
evaluate would-be entrants through a process known as inspection (Lugo, 2000;
Heyman, 2004, 307). “Primary inspection” involves an agent making a rapid
determination (on average, within 30 seconds) whether the individual being
interviewed should be allowed to enter the United States (Heyman, 2004, 308).
If the border crosser does not “pass” the agent’s initial examination, s/he may be
sent to “secondary inspection,” also known colloquially as revision (or revisión in
Spanish), where definitive decisions are made about the case, ultimately leading to
admission, rejection, arrest or prosecution (308).
Typically, the crosser presents documentation to prove that s/he should be
allowed to cross. Before January 2008, it was not mandatory to possess a
passport or formal crossing document; alternate documents, such as a driver’s
license or school identification card, were adequate. Regardless of documentation
type, CBP agents make inferences about the crosser based on visual cues, verbal
cues and responses to the agent’s questions (308). Agents ask crossers about their
citizenship and visa status, their activities in Mexico, and their intended activities
in the United States. The individual CBP agent wields substantial power to make
determinations about the individual border crosser, though these determinations
are not necessarily consistent and fairly applied to each individual (314). These
inspections can be aggressive, to the point of representing a form of ritualized
violence (Bejarano, 2010). The risk and uncertainty renders the border-crossing
experience quite stressful for many individuals – including those who have every
legitimate right to cross the border.
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
Racialized immigration enforcement and Mexican youth
Even though they have this right, the teens generally reported crossing the
border to be a nerve-wracking experience. Many had early memories of
confusion or fear. Sixteen-year-old Isabel, who crosses on a regular basis to see
her extended family in Tijuana, recalled, “When I used to cross when I was
younger I’d always get butterflies in my stomach, like terrible butterflies. And [my
family members] would be like, ‘Why are you scared?’ Before I crossed the border
I always went to the store and bought gum – it’s something I always did …
because I was so nervous.” Even though Isabel could not completely articulate her
reasons for her nervousness when she was younger, she was acutely aware of the
stressful nature of the inspection process.
Eighteen-year-old Esperanza reported feeling a gnawing sense of nervousness
whenever she crossed the border. Esperanza crosses the border multiple times
each month to visit with her brother and his family, who live in Tijuana. When
I asked her to describe what it was like to cross the border during an interview,
she responded:
Esperanza:
Christina:
Esperanza:
Christina:
Esperanza:
My dad always tells me to get my ID out probably every
20 minutes before we get to the actual border line. He always tells
me what to say. He says, ‘Make sure you don’t stumble, I don’t
want to end up in revision.’ So we get there and the man takes our
IDs and looks at them and then asks me more questions to make
sure that I know San Diego.
What kinds of questions do they ask you?
They’ll be like, ‘Where were you born? What’s your address?
What school do you go to? What classes are you taking in school?’
Something that will give him a clue that, yes, I am a U.S. citizen.
And he does the same to my dad, asking, ‘Where do you work?
What language do you speak? When did you get naturalized?’ So
he has to have that all in mind.
So how do you feel during that questioning?
Well, I get very nervous because I know that even though I am a US
citizen, there’s still that chance that they could hold me back and
revise me and that will just take the whole night and I have school
the next day.
activities in the
survey. I also
recorded in my
notes during
fieldwork reasons
for going to
Mexico as they
became evident.
9 When speaking
English, the teens
(and other locals)
refer to Tijuana
simply as T.J.
10 San Ysidro and
Otay Mesa are the
two largest ports
of entry in San
Diego County.
California has a
total of 20 ports of
entry, including
airports.
Esperanza’s account includes a very real fear for US citizens crossing the
border – that they will be detained in such a manner that it interferes with school,
work or other responsibilities. Esperanza’s concern about getting stopped was
legitimate, given that family members have actually been detained in this manner
before. Esperanza told me a story about her older brother, Adán, who lives in
Tijuana but works in the United States:
My brother is a U.S. citizen and he was crossing the border – he passes every
day. One time this dog, for no reason, just came up to his car and started
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
471
Getrich
barking. He didn’t have anything in his car – he was just going to work. The
dog wouldn’t stop barking. So the agents came in and they took him out of
the car and they started checking his car for things. They handcuffed him
and he was so embarrassed. He was tired so he didn’t really put up a big
fight, like, ‘Why are you guys checking me? Where are my rights?’ They
didn’t find anything in his car, but still, I mean – he’s a U.S. citizen. I don’t
know, I just felt that was unfair and unnecessary and made him late to his
job, which he could’ve gotten fired from. I just don’t think that was right.
Esperanza recalled the embarrassment that her brother felt when he was
stopped by the CBP agents and the injustice that he – and she, on his behalf –
felt for being falsely accused and having his citizenship questioned. She
recognized that his rights as a US citizen had been compromised. Even though
Esperanza knew that her brother was not doing anything wrong in crossing
the border, she still felt a sense of caution and wariness every time she gets in
the border line because of these past experiences of unpleasantness and
humiliation.
Paz, a 19-year old, told me about a dramatic event she experienced with her
family once when they were trying to cross back into the United States. Paz’s
family is quite binational; her grandmother – who raised her for the first six years
of her life – lives in Tijuana. Paz, her brother, their mother and other extended
family members go to Tijuana frequently to visit with her grandmother, but also
for reasons such as receiving medical care. Paz explained that when her cousins
get sick, her mother often takes them to Tijuana as the children do not have health
insurance and their father is undocumented. One time as they crossed, Paz
recounted:
[The immigration officials] were like, ‘I don’t think this girl is a U.S. citizen’
about my cousin. They were suspicious because the kids were my uncle’s
and he wasn’t there. We were surprised. Normally we would just say like,
‘Oh, we’re U.S. citizens’ or whatever and it’s not usually a problem. But [this
time] they ended up taking us away. It was really bad. I remember
we were like all huddled in some office on the floor for hours and hours.
We were all crying and crying and crying.
While Paz’s family was eventually released, the event was traumatic and made
a lasting impression on her.
The teens also felt that the CBP agents often questioned them too aggressively
and intrusively, even though they should be able to cross without incident.
Fifteen-year-old Amada identified herself as a “daily crosser.” She was born in the
United States, but, like Paz, spent her early childhood in Tijuana. Amada’s family
maintains a residence in Tijuana that is, in fact, their preferred residence
(the house is larger and in a better neighborhood than their San Diego house).
The family goes down to Tijuana virtually every weekend, as well as other times
472
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
Racialized immigration enforcement and Mexican youth
during the week. She expressed that agents scrutinize her excessively during
inspection, elaborating:
I remember one time when I was coming with my dad they asked, ‘Who
immigrated you?’ What kind of question is that for a 6-year old! Another
time they asked me, ‘Are you running away from home?’ and I was like, ‘Why
would I do that!’ It’s nonsense. And yeah, I know it’s their job, but sometimes
the questions are too much. They’re like, ‘What were you doing there? What
are you bringing back?’ And sometimes it’s really repetitive, especially since I
cross every day. They’ll be like, ‘I saw you yesterday – what were you doing in
Mexico again?’ And I’m like, ‘It’s none of your business!’
While questioning individuals is within the realm of what CBP agents’ jobs
entail, ethno-racial profiling is not. However, in practice, darker-skinned people
are more likely to be treated unfairly during the border-crossing encounter (Lugo,
2000, 360; Bejarano, 2010, 394). In fact, Lugo (2000, 360) argues that skin-color
identification is actually the first component of border inspections. Though in its
early days, Border Patrol agents were predominantly white and had the explicit
goal of policing the boundaries between whites and non-whites in the region
(Hernández, 2010), the ethnic/racial composition of the Border Patrol force has
subsequently shifted. By 2008, over half (51 per cent) of agents were Latino,
45 per cent were white, 1.2 per cent were African-American and 1 per cent were
Asian (Pinkerton, 2008). Heyman (2002) and Rosas (2006b) have described how
even given the shifting demographics of the Border Patrol force, agents of all
backgrounds rely not only on skin color but also on cues about supposed
foreignness, adding another layer of complication to the system of racialized
governance. Anecdotally, many teens told me that agents of Mexican descent are
indeed some of the harshest.
Esperanza reflected on the implications of skin color and perceived citizenship
on one’s border inspection experience in the following exchange:
Christina:
Esperanza:
Christina:
Esperanza:
Christina:
Esperanza:
So do the agents bother you a lot while you’re crossing?
Yes. This one day when I forgot my ID, he was being really rude
to me. I guess I can understand because I think it makes their jobs
easier if you have an ID with you, but, I mean, there’s always going
to be those cases that you don’t. I don’t know … it’s too bad I’m
not an obvious citizen.
So what would you say is an obvious citizen?
I don’t know. I think maybe if I was white and blond haired they’d
let me go by faster.
So just because you’re Mexican they feel like they can stop you?
Yeah. Especially because of my skin color. I’m dark – you can totally
tell I’m not like Caucasian or anything. So you can say, oh well, she’s
Hispanic. You can classify me easily. I think that’s what they do.
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
473
Getrich
Christina:
Esperanza:
Does that bother you?
Yes. I mean, as humans we categorize people and I know it’s their
job to make sure no illegal people cross. But it does bother me
because it just makes me nervous when I really shouldn’t feel
nervous about it because I was born [in the United States].
Like Esperanza, most of the teens were directly critical of the border-crossing
process, in particular because it unfairly targets them and their family members.
Much of their discussion of this unfairness pertained to the fact that they felt
that they were “legitimate” US citizens or residents who deserved to cross without
being hassled. Esperanza’s 14-year-old sister Victoria, who also crosses frequently to see her brother and his family in Tijuana, mused, “You’re always
thinking, why isn’t there a better way to do this? I guess there isn’t, but, hopefully,
they can come up with something because that’s really a hassle, especially if
you’re U.S. citizens who are really U.S. citizens. We just want to come in and out
and not be bothered.”
“E ver y t ime I see a wh it e va n I g et a lit t le n er vo u s an d ju st
w a l k a d i f f e r e n t r o u t e”: The spil lover o f immigration
e nf o rc e m e nt int o b or d e r co m m un i t i e s
Borderlanders’ encounters with state power are, however, not restricted to the
ports of entry; indeed immigration officials have an “inescapable presence”
(Lugo, 2000, 354) throughout the broader region. The Border Patrol has powers
of search and seizure at fixed checkpoints (such as the one in San Clemente just
beyond northern San Diego County) or within 20 miles of the boundary
(Heyman, 1998, 16). Border Patrol agents frequently patrol neighborhoods close
to the border or that are heavily Mexican in composition in their ubiquitous
white-with-green-trim SUVs. Indeed, residential segregation – the institutional
practice responsible for the construction of barrios – provides a mechanism for
concentrating surveillance efforts (Goldsmith et al, 2009, 116). The ever-presence
of immigration agents renders local residents a policed population (Heyman,
1998, 159).
Latino borderlanders of every immigration status are affected by the “spillover
from border control” (166) because it can be difficult to determine the legal status
of individuals merely by looking at them. Nonetheless, Border Patrol agents rely
on visual cues to identify would-be undocumented immigrants and also fall back
on “tacit group stereotypes” in making their assessments (166). The reality is that
undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants and US citizens of Mexican descent
may look similar, making the ability to distinguish between them visually in a
snap-judgment – or really, at all – questionable. Nonetheless, all of these
populations exist in a state of “policeability,” subject to the “diffuse yet
nonetheless potent processes of population management” (Rosas, 2006b).
474
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
Racialized immigration enforcement and Mexican youth
The mistreatment of people of Mexican descent creeps into seemingly “safe”
places such as neighborhoods, workplaces and schools. Border Patrol presence is
strong in the barrio. Esperanza encapsulated this feeling of the Border Patrol
always being around, stating, “I don’t know if they go undercover or what, or if
they dress like normal people. But my mom would always tell me they’re in white
vans. So every time I see a white van I get a little nervous, and just walk a different
route.” I then queried, “Even though you don’t have anything to worry about?”
to which Esperanza succinctly answered, “Yeah, I guess it’s just ingrained in me.”
Again, Esperanza is a native-born US citizen, meaning that she should have
nothing to fear of a potential encounter with Border Patrol agents. Nonetheless,
she maintains a fear of their power that actually shapes the way in which she
maneuvers through her neighborhood.
Eighteen-year-old Sal recalled a childhood encounter with Border Patrol agents
in his neighborhood:
Once we were playing freeze tag over there in the apartments when I was
maybe like 10. I ran outside the complex and I was running like crazy.
I didn’t even notice that the Border Patrol was there. They pretty much
thought that I was running because of them. They were like, ‘Hey, stop’ in
both languages. I was like, ‘Okay! I’m just playing freeze tag!’ They didn’t
believe me at first. So they asked me a couple of questions. And then they
were like, ‘Do you know it’s against the law to run from the Border Patrol?’
and I was like, ‘I didn’t even know you guys were out here! We’re just
playing a game.’ And eventually they saw all of the kids coming out and
what was going on with me and they were like, ‘Okay, we’ll let you go.’ It
was messed up.
Incidents such as Sal’s inculcate in children both an awareness and fear of the
Border Patrol. That Esperanza and Sal are not able to freely maneuver within
their neighborhood is evidence of the conspicuous fields of surveillance within
which they operate. Esperanza’s sister Victoria characterized this feeling as
one of generalized paranoia, describing what life is like for people she knows:
“My friend’s cousin, I know him and he’s always kind of paranoid. Like, when
[we] were selling tamales [at] church, he saw the Border Patrol and he was like,
‘Oh gosh, hide me!’ ” Victoria did not share what the individual’s legal status
was, but in some ways it is irrelevant since people from a range of statuses
reported similar feelings of fear.
Neighborhood streets, apartment complexes and even church property are not
necessarily “safe” spaces, as these accounts have demonstrated. One might think
that school would be, though in April 2006 during after school programming at
the center, Amada told me about an incident that took place that signaled just the
opposite: “One day, the Border Patrol came to our school – like they were sitting
there just outside of our school. And people were so scared. They were hiding in
the bathrooms, literally. I think that’s terrible. You had students – no matter what
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
475
Getrich
11 La migra is the
colloquial term in
Spanish used to
refer to Border
Patrol or other
uniformed CBP or
ICE officers.
the citizenship – hiding in the bathroom. And it’s just because of the Border
Patrol. It’s sad to me.” Amada perceptively noted that even US citizens ran into
the bathroom, though they had no real reason to be scared.
Paz felt the power of the Border Patrol on her college campus in Pennsylvania,
even though they were not physically present. One day while in her dorm room
on campus, she recounted, “I was talking to my mom on the phone – it was finals
week. All the sudden, she was like, Ay, la migra11 ! and I was like, ‘Where?’
[Makes a ducking motion.] I got scared.” I asked, “Even though you were all the
way in Pennsylvania?” to which Paz responded, “Yeah, even though I was over
there, I still got scared. And I’m not even illegal!” Paz’s instinctive reaction to her
mother’s call that the Border Patrol was present was to duck out of fear. Thus, the
sense of fear that Paz felt transcended the physical location of the US-Mexico
borderlands, ever-present in her habitus.
“You g et pushed and you kind of push back, t oo ”: You t h
r e s i s t a n c e t o s t a t e p o we r
As all of these ethnographic examples have demonstrated, the teens experience
and internalize the “everydayness” of state power; in fact, some teens noted that it
was only when they attended schools in other neighborhoods that they realized
that immigration officials did not have the same presence everywhere. The teens’
accounts of their everyday encounters with officials were peppered with feelings
of fear, trauma, nervousness, unfairness, embarrassment and even resignation.
Those who reported having negative encounters with immigration officials often felt
indignant about being unfairly targeted, particularly because of their status as citizens
and their feelings of legitimacy as such. Though border-control measures are
unquestionably oppressive, the US state has not achieved perfect control over
sovereign and symbolic borders, as border scholars have long documented (Kearney,
1991, 58). For example, innumerable immigrants who are captured and deported find
ways to successfully cross the militarized border (Heyman, 1998; Rosas, 2006a, b),
engaging in “the art of undermining the state” (Rosas, 2006b, 409).
Borderland youth have found particularly creative strategies for manipulating
this state power (Rosas, 2006b), cultivating strategies of transformative resistance
that allow them to contest the infringement of their rights and tap into their local
knowledge bases (Bejarano, 2010). Paulina, for instance, revealed, “It so pisses
me off when we cross the border and they’re like, ‘Why were you in Mexico?’ I’m
like, ‘Because I can be. Because I want to be. Because I have the right to come over
here.’ I tell my mom that it pisses me off because I was born here with a social
security card in my hand.” Paulina is assertive and does not hold back in her
(frequent) interactions with immigration officials. Sal similarly felt that the
encounters with agents forced him into defensive mode, relating, “You get
pushed and you kind of push back, too.”
476
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
Racialized immigration enforcement and Mexican youth
Other teens shared their own creative ways of maneuvering around state
power. Isabel described the way in which her group of friends – of mixed
immigration statuses – showed solidarity for one another:
I have some friends that I hang with. And a couple of them – like two or
three – don’t have papers. One of them got picked up by the patrol officers
and they took him to T.J. So some of my friends, all the ones that could go,
went down to T.J. and took money and this and that over to him. They
made sure he had everything – that he was in a nice hotel and had food and
all. And then later, the day after, they themselves crossed him. So they
crossed and they’re just speaking English, all of them. Nobody took IDs,
nobody took nothing. So the [immigration officials] asked them, and they
were like, “Oh, we’re citizens.” So a bunch of teenagers went over to T.J.
and crossed him back.
In this situation, Isabel’s friends challenged the US state’s determination that
their friend did not belong in the United States by deploying a US citizen identity
through speaking English and acting “American”; they were ultimately able to
cross by convincingly performing US citizenship. Other scholars have documented similar “border security performances” (Bejarano, 2010, 395) deployed by
borderland youth by tapping into the language and clothing styles of US-born
Latinos (Rosas, 2006b).
Beyond these accounts of resistance, I also saw the teens’ responses in action.
During my fieldwork, I accompanied two different groups of teens to a remote
park that abuts the border fence. As a group of us approached the park for a
community service project, we saw three Border Patrol agents atop ATV vehicles.
Fifteen-year-old Nancy jokingly said, “Aw, la migra. I don’t have my papers.
What are they gonna do to me?” Fifteen-year-old Tomás laughingly asked,
“What do you think they’d do if I just started running through that open part
there? If they stopped me, I’d be like, ‘Hey, I’m a citizen – I was born here. Why
are you chasing after me?’ ” Their imagined reactions to the Border Patrol agents
were not ones of fear; instead, they played with the possibility that they may have
a measure of power because of their position as legitimate US citizens. A few
months later, I accompanied sophomores Wilson and Marta as they took pictures
in the park for the Photovoice project. They, too, joked about what would
happen if they hopped the border fence and ran the other way into Mexico in
plain sight of the Border Patrol agents. As they were shooting their pictures,
Marta, who is quite thin, attempted to squeeze through the part of the border wall
constructed of vertical metal slats, saying “I just wanted to see if I could cross that
way, too.”
In both of these examples, the teens’ joking made light of the seriousness of
crossing the border and having/not having immigration papers. It highlighted the
ambiguity of their own sense of belonging – the realization they were “legitimate”
even though it was entirely possible that the immigration officials would not
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
477
Getrich
perceive them as being US citizens. These jokes were a way for them to assert their
belonging – imaginatively correcting the officers for assuming that they did not
have the right to be in the United States. Secure in their immigration status, these
four teens manipulated ideas about belonging in order to make a point, if only to
themselves. These burgeoning feelings of belonging also emerged quite clearly –
and forcefully – during this time period as second-generation youth throughout
California asserted their belonging in the immigrant rights protests of 2006
(Bloemraad and Trost, 2008; Getrich, 2008). Indeed, children are proving to be
active agents of change within their borderland communities (Bosco, 2010).
These expressions of agency also serve to underscore the fragility of the system of
power in the borderlands (Rosas, 2006b).
Grappling W ith t he Effects o f t he Expandi ng R aci alized
E nf o rc e m e nt R e gi m e
This article has documented how the US system of racialized immigration
enforcement is lived and comprehended by the US-born children of Mexican
immigrants in San Diego. The teens are coming of age during a period of intensified
border control that they have experienced first-hand in various types of encounters
they have with state power. For some of them, these largely negative experiences
reinforce that their membership is not valued and that they are perceived as not
belonging in the United States, despite their own feelings and assertions to the
contrary. It is because the teens are told (verbally and otherwise) that they do not
necessarily belong in the same manner as everyone else that they come to feel like
they are not, as 14-year-old Nadia phrased it, “welcome” in the United States.
Immigration enforcement strategies may be nominally designed to prevent
unauthorized border crossers from entering the United States and to target them
as they circulate throughout the United States. However, as the line between
immigrants and citizens is not clear – and indeed, never can be – the US-born
children of Mexican immigrants are subjected to the racialized system of
immigration enforcement, even though technically they should be insulated from
such mistreatment. Immigration enforcement activities of the past two decades
have taken a substantial human rights toll on undocumented immigrants as well
as “legal” immigrant and US citizen Latino residents of border communities
(Dunn, 2010). As evidenced in this article, children are another social category
whose rights are compromised in the context of border policing. Despite
frequently being portrayed as having ill-defined partial membership or semicitizenship (Cohen, 2005, 221–222), it is clear that youth actively engage in social
struggle and everyday practices of resistance (Rosas, 2006a, 341) in the borderlands – both for themselves and more broadly for their mixed-status immigrant
families (Getrich, 2008).
478
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
Racialized immigration enforcement and Mexican youth
As immigration enforcement laws are introduced and implemented at federal,
state and local levels in the current anti-immigrant sociopolitical climate, we have
to consider the effects of these practices on local populations who may adversely
bear the burden of them. Particularly given the implications for ethno-racial
profiling of legislation like SB 1070 and subsequent copycat bills, it is important to consider the effects of such acts of exclusion, as they are not without
consequence. Though immigration enforcement may purportedly monitor the
legal statuses of border crossers and local residents, it has been demonstrated that
they really target ethno-racial characteristics, or Mexicanness, which represents
an institutional pattern of structural violence (Goldsmith et al, 2009).
In particular, we need to make sure that US immigration and immigrant
policies and practices do not unduly burden US citizen children, who are
frequently unintended and overlooked victims of aggressive immigration policies
and practices. For children in particular, the racialization of citizenship is
particularly dangerous as they are being sent the message that only “obvious”
(that is, white) citizens truly belong in the United States. The internalization of
their feelings of second-class citizenship has the potential to negatively affect their
sense of belonging and, ultimately, their ability to flourish and lead productive
lives in the United States.
A b o ut th e A u th o r
Christina M. Getrich is a research scientist in the Department of Family and
Community Medicine at the University of New Mexico, where she also received
her PhD in Anthropology. Her research interests include immigrant families
and second-generation youth, the effects of immigration policies and enforcement practices on local populations, immigrant health-care access and utilization, and ethnic/racial disparities in health care. She has published articles
in American Behavioral Scientist, American Journal of Public Health, Social
Science and Medicine, Journal of Community Health, and Qualitative Health
Research.
Re fe re nc es
Aiken, S.C. and V. Plows. 2010. Overturning Assumptions about Young People, Border
Spaces, and Revolutions. Children’s Geographies 8(4): 327–353.
Andreas, P. 2000. Introduction: The Wall after the Wall. In The Wall around the West: State
Borders and Immigration Controls in North America and Europe, eds. P. Andreas and
T. Snyder, 1–11. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Andreas, P. and T.J. Biersteker, eds. 2003. The Rebordering of North America: Integration
and Exclusion in a New Security Context. New York: Routledge.
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
479
Getrich
Archibold, R.C. 2010. Arizona Enacts Stringent Law on Immigration. The New York Times
23 April.
Behdad, A. 2005. A Forgetful Nation: On Immigration and Cultural Identity in the United
States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Bejarano, C. 2005. ¿Qué Onda?: Urban Youth Culture and Border Identity. Tucson, AZ:
University of Arizona Press.
Bejarano, C. 2010. Border Rootedness as Transformative Resistance: Youth Overcoming
Violence and Inspection in a U.S.-Mexico Border Region. Children’s Geographies 8(4):
391–399.
Bennett, B. 2011. Obama Administration Reports Record Number of Deportations. The Los
Angeles Times 18 October.
Bloemraad, I. and C. Trost. 2008. It’s a Family Affair: Intergenerational Mobility in the
Spring 2006 Protests. American Behavioral Scientist 52(4): 607–632.
Bosco, F. 2010. Play, Work or Activism? Broadening the Connections between Political and
Children’s Geographies. Children’s Geographies 8(4): 381–390.
Capps, R., R.M. Castañeda, A. Chaudry and R. Santos. 2007. Paying the Price: The Impact
of Immigration Raids on America’s Children, http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/
411566_immigration_raids.pdf, accessed 18 November 2007.
Chavez, L.R. 2008. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Cockcroft, J.D. 1986. Outlaws in the Promised Land: Mexican Immigrant Workers and
America’s Future. New York: Grove Atlantic.
Cohen, E.F. 2005. Neither Seen Nor Heard: Children’s Citizenship in Contemporary
Democracies. Citizenship 9(2): 221–240.
Coleman, M. 2007. Immigration Geopolitics beyond the Mexico-U.S. Border. Antipode 39
(1): 54–76.
Cornelius, W.A. 2001. Death at the Border: Efficacy and Unintended Consequences of U.S.
Immigration Control Policy. Population and Development Review 27(4): 661–685.
Cornelius, W.A., P.L. Martin and J.F. Hollifield, eds. 1994. Controlling Immigration:
A Global Perspective. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Coutin, S.B. 2000. Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants’ Struggle for U.S. Residency.
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
DeGenova, N. 2002. Migrant “Illegality” and Deportability in Everyday Life. Annual
Review of Anthropology 31: 419–447.
DeGenova, N. 2005. Working the Boundaries: Race, Space, and “Illegality” in Mexican
Chicago. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
DeGenova, N. and A.Y. Ramos-Zayas. 2003. Latino Crossings: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans,
and the Politics of Race and Citizenship. New York: Routledge.
Dunn, T. 1996. The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1978–1992: Low Intensity
Conflict Doctrine Comes Home. Austin, TX: Center for Mexican American Studies,
University of Texas.
Dunn, T. 2010. Blockading the Border and Human Rights: The El Paso Operation that
Remade Immigration Enforcement. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Eschbach, K., J. Hagan, N. Rodríguez, R. Hernández-León and S. Bailey. 1999. Death at the
Border. International Migration Review 33(2): 430–454.
Espiritu, Y.L. 2003. Home Bound: Filipino American Lives across Cultures, Communities,
and Countries. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
480
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
Racialized immigration enforcement and Mexican youth
Fix, M. and W. Zimmerman. 2001. All Under One Roof: Mixed-status Families in an Era of
Reform. International Migration Review 35(2): 397–419.
Fix, M., W. Zimmerman and J.S. Passel. 2001. The Integration of Immigrant Families in
the United States, http://www.urban.org/publications/410227.html, accessed 21 April
2005.
Getrich, C.M. 2008. Negotiating Boundaries of Social Belonging: Second-generation
Mexican Youth and the Immigrant Rights Protests of 2006. American Behavioral
Scientist 52(4): 533–556.
Getrich, C.M., R. Martinez, L. Jimenez and M. Breigh. 2000. The Deportee Monitoring
Project. Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego: The
Register of American Friends Service Committee-United States-Mexico Border Program,
1974–2004.
Goldsmith, P.R., M. Romero, R. Rubio-Goldsmith, M. Escobedo and L. Khoury. 2009.
Ethno-racial Profiling and State Violence in a Southwest Barrio. Aztlán: A Journal of
Chicano Studies 34(1): 93–123.
Gorman, A. 2010. Arizona’s Immigration Law Isn’t the Only One. The Los Angeles Times
16 July.
Haney López, I. 1996. White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. New York: New
York University Press.
Hernández, D.M. 2008. Pursuant to Deportation: Latinos and Immigrant Detention. Latino
Studies 6(1–2): 35–63.
Hernández, K.L. 2010. Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol. Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press.
Heyman, J.M. 1998. State Effects on Labor Exploitation: The INS and Undocumented
Immigrants at the Mexico-United States Border. Critique of Anthropology 18(2):
157–180.
Heyman, J.M. 1999. United States Surveillance over Mexican Lives at the Border: Snapshots
of an Emerging Regime. Human Organization 58(4): 430–438.
Heyman, J.M. 2002. U.S. Immigration Officers of Mexican Ancestry as Mexican Americans,
Citizens, and Immigration Police. Current Anthropology 43(3): 479–507.
Heyman, J.M. 2004. Ports of Entry as Nodes in the World System. Identities: Global Studies
in Culture and Power 11(3): 303–327.
Inda, J.X. 2006a. Targeting Immigrants: Government, Technology, and Ethics. Malden,
MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Inda, J.X. 2006b. Border Prophylaxis: Technology, Illegality, and the Government of
Immigration. Cultural Dynamics 18(2): 115–138.
Jonas, S. 2006. Reflections on the Great Immigration Battle of 2006 and the Future of the
Americas. Social Justice 33(1): 6–20.
Kearney, M. 1991. Borders and Boundaries of State and Self at the End of Empire. Journal of
Historical Sociology 4(1): 52–74.
Lacey, M. 2011. Arizona Sheriff’s Office Targeted Latinos, Justice Department Says.
The New York Times 15 December.
Lugo, A. 2000. Theorizing Border Inspections. Cultural Dynamics 12(3): 353–373.
Luna-Firebaugh, E.M. 2002. The Border Crossed Us: Border Crossing Issues of the
Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. Wicazo Sa Review 17(1): 159–181.
Massey, D.S., J. Durand and N.J. Malone, eds. 2002. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican
Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
481
Getrich
Mendoza Inzunza, D.J. and C. Fernández Huerta. 2010. The Importance of Looking at the
Border from a Young Person’s Perspective. Children’s Geographies 8(4): 335–341.
National Council of State Legislatures. 2013. Immigration-related Laws and Resolutions in
the States (1 January – 31 December 2012), http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/immig/
2012-immigration-related-laws-jan-december-2012.aspx, accessed 9 August 2013.
Nevins, J. 2002. Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the “Illegal Alien” and the Making of
the U.S.-Mexico Boundary. New York: Routledge.
Ong, A. 2003. Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America. Berkeley, CA:
The University California Press.
Pinkerton, J. 2008. Border Patrol to Woo Black Recruits: Plan Part of Overall Staffing Boost.
Houston Chronicle 12 January.
Preston, J. 2010. Report Faults Training of Local Officers in Immigration Enforcement
Program. New York Times 2 April.
Romero, M. 2006. Racial Profiling and Immigration Law Enforcement: Rounding Up of
Usual Suspects in the Latino Community. Critical Sociology 32(2-3): 447–473.
Romero, M. 2008. Crossing the Immigration and Race Border: A Critical Race Theory
Approach to Immigration Studies. Contemporary Justice Review 11(1): 23–37.
Rosas, G. 2006a. The Thickening Borderlands: Diffused Exceptionality and “Immigrant”
Social Struggles during the “War on Terror”. Cultural Dynamics 18(3): 335–349.
Rosas, G. 2006b. The Managed Violences of the Borderlands: Treacherous Geographies,
Policeability, and the Politics of Race. Latino Studies 4(4): 401–418.
San Diego’s Regional Planning Agency (SANDAG). 2011. Census 2000 Profile, City of San
Diego, http://cart.sandag.org/profiles/cen00/sdcpa1402cen00.pdf, accessed 12 November
2011.
Spener, D. 2003. Controlling the Border in El Paso del Norte: Operation Blockade or
Operation Charade? In Ethnography at the Border, ed. P. Vila, 182–198. Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Wang, C. and M.A. Burris. 1994. Empowerment through Photovoice: Portraits of Participation.
Health Education Quarterly 21(2): 171–186.
482
© 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435
Latino Studies
Vol. 11, 4, 462–482
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.