Death by Policy at the México-US Border: Theorizing & Measuring Migrant Cruelty

• In Event: Human Smuggling and the Criminalization of Rescue

Abstract

With over 800 migrant deaths reported in fiscal year 2022, the U.N. migration agency (IOM) named the México-U.S. border the world’s deadliest land route for migrants. After nearly 30 years after the implementation of the U.S. Border Patrol’s “Prevention through Deterrence” policy, migrant deaths along the southern border continue to rise. Despite the border wall’s role in exacerbating the lethality of border crossings, support for “deterrence” measures have surged in popularity among the American public. Meanwhile, new efforts by U.S. states to deter migrant crossings using physical barriers like buoys and concertina wire as in Texas’ Operation Lonestar mark an escalation in explicit displays of migrant cruelty. We argue that these measures resulting in harm towards and the death of migrants represent forms of legal violence created by processes of governmental precaritization (Lorey 2015). We further contextualize the deadly logics of deterrence as embedded in practices of Latinx racialization using Beltrán’s theoretical exploration of migrant cruelty and its meaning for white citizenship (Beltrán 2020). Using data gathered from the 2020 CMPS we document the extent to which Americans normalize the dangers of migration and view migrant death as the inevitable consequences of enforcement policies.

Authors

• Melissa Adams-Corral, UT - RGV

• Alvaro Jose Corral, The University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley