Migrants, activists, and the Mexican State: framing violence, rights, and solidarity along the U.S.-Mexico border

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on how different actors frame and respond to violence, rights, and solidarity along the U.S.-Mexico border, and points to the institutions available for redress – focusing on migrants, activists, and state actors. Through this comparison, the article highlights the way violence along the U.S.-Mexico border becomes pervasive, normalized, and incontestable due to the lack of institutional paths to address this violence, while solidarity work remains largely symbolic and unsupported by the state. This article shows that solidarity with people on the move is often the result of a politicized view that takes into account the violence the border engenders – and that this work is also limited by ideology and legal boundaries. This article draws on media and governmental reports, as well as surveys, interviews, and participant observation data collected in the border town of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, between July 2009 and August 2010.

KEYWORDS:

• Violence
• illegality
• undocumented migrants
• activists
• solidarity
• U.S.-Mexico border

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all the migrants, activist, advocates, and government representatives who took the time to share their perspectives, as well as the friends who took the time to read and provide feedback on various versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heidy Sarabia

Heidy Sarabia is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at California State University, Sacramento. Her research focuses on global and transnational processes such as international migration, immigration laws and policies in the U.S., the transnational regime of illegality, Latinxs in the U.S., race/ethnicity, U.S.-Mexico border, social movements, Latinxs in higher education, and methods.