The Border Patrol State Essay

In Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz’s book, Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network, she allows us to enter the everyday lives of ten undocumented Mexican workers all living in the Chicago area. Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz refers to Chuy, Alejandro, Leonardo, Luis, Manuel, Omar, Rene, Roberto, Lalo, and Albert the ten undocumented Mexicans as the “Lions”. This book shares the Lions many stories from, their daily struggle of living as an undocumented immigrant in America, to some of them telling their stories about crossing the border and the effects of living in a different country than their family, and many other struggles and experiences they have encountered. Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz’s book delves into

In her book, Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network, Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz describes the lives of ten busboys, she referrs to as the Lions, living and working in the Chicago area. Gomberg-Muñoz provides an insight into the lives of these undocumented Mexican workers. They share their stories of crossing the border, the affects of their absence on family back in Mexico, and the daily struggles of living in a country without the benefits of citizenship. The Lions, as well as other undocumented Mexicans, have to face Americans stereotypes every day. Probably the biggest stereotype the Lions contend with is the belief that all Mexicans are hard workers.

Amidst the chaos of the protest, the Gottliebs were transported away in an ambulance. By nighttime, Ravi was in Miami; Amy, in shock and pain. Six long days passed by until she finally received word that Ravi would return to the New York area, remaining detained but close nonetheless. According to the author, Ravi’s arrest is just the latest in a series that clearly demonstrates the ICE’s intention to suppress the voices of immigrant activists; in the past week alone, three activists have endured similar experiences. Throughout the article, Gottlieb primarily utilizes pathos to inform her readers about the reality of the immigration system.

The book “Coyotes” by Ted Conover describes the lives of immigrants who cross over to from Mexico to the United States. It describes the hardships that they face along the way and it shows what it is like to be an illegal immigrant. Ted Conover is an American journalist who basically wanted to shed light on the impact of illegal immigration in both Mexico and the United States. In order to do this he travels to Mexico so that he can experience firsthand what it is like to be a Mexican crossing the border illegally. From there the book describes his journey of trying to navigate life as an illegal immigrant in the United States.

apprehend lawbreakers, it was equally their duty to save the lost and the dying” (Urrea 18). The Border Patrol is the antagonist for the immigrants because when they get caught they send them back to where they came from. “Now they had a choice. Cross the road and stagger along the front range of the mountains, or stay on the road and hope the border patrol would find them” (Urrea 14). Throughout the story some Mexicans were wishing to get caught by the border patrol yes their enemy.

Leslie Marmon Silko is a Tucson based Laguna Pueblo fiction author and poet. Having been based in the southwestern area since 1978, she began to notice the increase in border security and checkpoints. In 1994, her essay, “The Border Patrol State,” was published in The Nation magazine.

Border corridos revolve around the Texas-Mexico border and illustrate the effects of the The Mexican-American War. During the Mexican-American War, Mexico lost the battle and the state of Texas, which made the Rio Grande the national border. As a result, Mexicans who lived on the other side of the river had to decide between America and Mexico. The people who chose to stay in America became “Tejanos (Texan-American)”(Davis, Lecture) and their culture, language, and property were respected due to the signing of the “Treaty of Guadalupe” (Flores, 167). However as Anglo-American settlers moved into Mexican territory, a “land-grab” was institutionalized, which sold most of Mexicans’ lands for cheap prices, due to the Mexican population’s unawareness. Not only that, but Texas officers known as “Texas Rangers” discriminated and violently treated ethnic Mexicans (Davis, Lecture). The border corridors reflect the interethnic conflict between whites and Tejanos and portray the injustice during those times. Similarly, Badman Ballads portrays the oppression of one ethnic groups towards another. This ballad illustrates blacks discriminated by whites during the

In the reading land of open graves by De Leon, discusses the dangers that millions of Mexican and central Americans face when trying to get into the United States undocumented. These people include people who have the dream of living in America and creating a new life where they can support their families. Also for those who have been deported back to Mexico being separated from their families and are in hopes of being reunited with their loved ones. These people face a hard battle ahead of them because they have to travel through the Sonoran desert of Arizona that is one of the largest deserts in North America. And have to deal with not only fighting the harsh desert elements, while only caring as many supplies as they can. They also have to deal with the structural violence that goes under looked that thousands of Mexicans have to face while migrating to the United States.

Border militarization did not make people change their minds about coming to the United States, but rather just made them change how they did so and their rate of return (Massey, Durand, and Pren). With more enforcement in California, it left Arizona exposed. In “The State of Arizona”, they drive by where the border stops being a wall and just barbed wire. If you are trying to get into the United States, it is much easier to cut barbed wire than climb a wall. Not only are these extra migrants who would have typically went to California contributing to the larger migrant population, “The State of Arizona” mentions plenty of the migrants who have been living in the United States for many years, with no intention of returning. The son of the man who is detained actually even mentions that he does not want to go to

Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz’s, Labor and Legality is a book written on the Mexican immigrant network in the U.S. She centers it on the Lions, a group of Mexican men from Leon, Mexico that all share their lives and help explain the many networks and strategies that are used in order to excel and gain happiness. There have been many different sorts of misconceptions about immigrants, and in recent years about undocumented immigrants from Mexico. The U.S. has made a sort of war on illegal immigrants and has made it a seemingly high priority in the media and in politics. Therefore, many Americans have been mislead and ill-informed about the history of immigrants/undocumented immigrants. Gomberg-Muñoz’s Labor and Legality helps set us straight. She unveils undocumented immigrants for the people that they are instead of the criminals that the media leads many to believe. Although she doesn’t have a wide range of participants for her study, I believe that she addresses many of the misconceptions and just plain ignorance that American people have of people that are undocumented; why stereotypes are supported by the people themselves, why politicians include stronger illegal immigration laws, and everything in between. Many of her topics reveal a sort of colonialism that the U.S. practices on Mexico; the exploitation of undocumented peoples to the benefit of the U.S. through economics, hypocritical laws and campaigns, and the racist and prejudice consequences.

The social commentaries in both The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle and “Child, Dead, in the Rose Garden by E.L. Doctorow unveils the true reality of the American Government and the social injustice of the American society. In the Tortilla Curtain, T.C. Boyle took upon an adventure of two illegal immigrants from Mexico who faced the unsettling truth of the social class system of America. But In “Child, Dead, in a Rose Garden” E.L. Doctorow expresses the injustice of the Government and their ability to blindside the public with fraudulent information.

As proven through Silko’s own testament, the border patrol clearly does not make Americans feel safe. And, while Silko does not directly speak of those that this system stops, she does mention many people that are wrongfully stopped. In each of these stops patrolmen waste time, energy, and resources on individuals with valid identification. Silko recounts her own experience when saying, “I was detained once at Truth or Consequences, despite my and my companions Arizona drivers license” (Silko 2). She continues on to speak of other people, namely of mixed descent, whom were stopped under similar circumstances, while whites were rarely stopped. In these accounts the system is helping no one; the border patrolmen are not detaining illegal immigrants, and citizens are forced to conceit their liberty or face further struggle, all while valuable resources are being wasted. In Border Patrol State, Silko makes numerous illusions to the feeling of freedom while driving down the vast, open highways characteristic of the south, or being taught in schools that every citizen has the right to freedom, although, unfortunately as her somber tone alludes, the border patrol state takes that freedom away. Citizens with valid credentials are coerced and bullied into being stopped and searched for all sorts of illegal contraband ranging from drugs to undocumented immigrants. If one is not complicit with patrolmen, they can be detained or forced to wait hours on end for search warrants which will in most cases end in a mandatory strip search, even if they have

The main focus of this week’s readings was about the United States reception of immigrants through policy. From the Martin reading, we saw that there are two main approaches to immigrant policy. They may be accommodating or they can also be restrictive. For the former, these policies extend rights to unauthorized immigrants, such as access to health care or tuition assistance. These policy tend to appear where there has been a history of unauthorized immigrants and the local populace does not see the harm in having them within their city. Varsayani describes sanctuary ordinance as a cities declaration of noncooperation with federal immigration authorities. These cities will choose to deal with unauthorized immigrant as a citizen of that city and will only contact federal immigration authorities in case of a felony. On the other hand, there are the exclusionary policy approaches that are undertaken by state and local level governments. Varsayani explains that when a city or state experiences a large influx of immigrants whether they may be legal or illegal there sometimes is a negative reaction to their arrival. Often fueled by fear many citizens make assumptions about illegal immigrants and join together to pass ordinances or propositions that would make it difficult for those immigrants to live in their city or state. Whenever states or local governments do this they preempt their power over immigration issues that are not part of their jurisdiction. This is often done

In the story of Forbidden Workers - Illegal Chinese Immigrants in New York, we are given a look at American Society from the perspective of an illegal immigrant who is taken advantage of because of their status and the vulnerable position that they are put in because of it. Peter Kwong provides a broad, but subjective, analysis of American life, labor laws, and other key points in immigration. However, while the message Kwong conveys with this interesting and informational work, it is hindered by his bias which comes out blatantly throughout, limiting the book that would have earned a recommendation for the American Psychological Association (ASA) award for the International Migration category, but instead deserving an honorable mention.

ICE stands for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they deal with matters concerning border control, customs, trade and immigration to insure public safety and homeland security. Their priorities focus on preventing terrorism and the illegal movement of items, as well as people. Within ICE, there are three subgroups that fall into specialized tasks for the agency, such as Homeland security investigations (HSI) and the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). Although being a fairly new agency there has been more than a few controversies on how ICE handles the illegal immigrants, however, since 9/11 the U.S has been trying to find the most effective ways to stop terrorism. So, that also means that not everyone would agree with the tactics that ICE used to solve the problem for those specific cases.