Mortality, Surveillance and the Tertiary “Funnel Effect” on the U.S.-Mexico Border: A Geospatial Modeling of the Geography of Deterrence

ABSTRACT

Theories of migration deterrence have long posited that border enforcement infrastructure pushes migration routes into more rugged and deadly terrain, driving an increase in migrant mortality. Applying geospatial analysis of landscape and human variables in one highly-trafficked corridor of the Arizona / Sonora border, we test whether the expansion of surveillance infrastructure has in fact shifted migrants’ routes toward areas that are more remote and difficult to traverse. We deploy a modeling methodology, typically used in archaeological and military science, to measure the energy expenditure of persons traversing the borderlands. Outcomes of this model are then compared to the changes in border infrastructure and records of fatality locations. Findings show that there is a significant correlation between the location of border surveillance technology, the routes taken by migrants, and the locations of recovered human remains in the southern Arizona desert. Placed in the context of ongoing efforts by the United States to geographically expand and concentrate border surveillance and enforcement infrastructure, we argue that this suggests a third “funnel effect” that has the outcome of maximizing the physiological toll imposed by the landscape on unauthorized migrants, long after migration routes have moved away from traditional urban crossing areas.

KEYWORDS:

• GIScience
• health
• human migration
• border surveillance
• biopolitics
• spatial analysis

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 This number only accounts for human remains that are found and reported. Organizations such as Tucson’s Coalición de Derechos Humanos suggest that as migrants have been pushed into more remote areas, for every one death reported as many as ten may never be accounted for.

2 The language of “threat” is common vernacular among border security professionals, used to encompass unlawful migration, criminal smuggling and terrorist activities alike (cf U.S. Border Patrol 2012).