Local Impacts of the Balloon Effect of Border Law Enforcement

Abstract

While discussion of borders in the post-9/11 world invokes images of national security lapses and in early 2006 the economic and social challenges of undocumented workers was again making headlines in the United States, residents of rural border regions face a more immediate set of troubles. Their issues are byproducts of past national debates and the resulting increase in law enforcement efforts in urban locations which have converged crossing pressure onto more remote, difficult-to-cross, less publicly-visible, and less politically powerful rural areas. In particular, this article looks at the impact this squeeze has had on the Tohono O'odham reservation along the US-Mexico border in south central Arizona.