The Border Thickens: In‐Securing Communities after IRCA

Abstract

AbstractThis article analyses a certain ‘thickening of the border,’ a term I coin to underscore a certain blurring of the insides and the outsides of the United States with respect to Latin American, primarily Mexican, immigration. In making this intervention, the article underscores the linkages among a dark legacy of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), the militarization of Border Patrol policing practices in the southwestern United States, and “Secure Communities,” a mammoth immigration policing program across much of the United States.