Migra!: A History of the U.S. Border PatrolPolitical awareness of the tensions in U.S.-Mexico relations is rising in the twenty-first century; the American history of its treatment of illegal immigrants represents a massive failure of the promises of the American dream. This is the untold history of the United States Border Patrol from its beginnings in 1924 as a small peripheral outfit to its emergence as a large professional police force that continuously draws intense scrutiny and denunciations from political activism groups. To tell this story, MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Kelly Lytle Hernández dug through a gold mine of lost and unseen records and bits of biography stored in garages, closets, an abandoned factory, and in U.S. and Mexican archives. Focusing on the daily challenges of policing the Mexican border and bringing to light unexpected partners and forgotten dynamics, Migra! reveals how the U.S. Border Patrol translated the mandate for comprehensive migration control into a project of policing immigrants and undocumented "aliens" in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. |
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agribusinessmen AHINM aliens American G.I. Forum Angeles apprehended Border Patrol officers Border Patrol practice Bracero Program Calexico California Chief Patrol Inspector Chinese Commissioner cross-border Department of Migration deportation District Director drug El Paso entering the United farm farmers federal Fiscal force Gamio gration Ibid ican illegal immigration immi Immigration and Naturalization immigration law enforcement June Laredo memo Mexicali Mexican American Mexican Department Mexican migration Mexican nationals Mexican officials Mexican workers Mexico Migración migration control NARA Naturalization Service NBPM number of Mexican Number of persons Operation Wetback Paso Paul Schuster Taylor percent policing Mexicans political post-wetback racial raids ranchers recruits smugglers social south Texas station Texas Rangers tion trol U.S. and Mexican U.S. Border Patrol U.S. immigration control U.S. immigration law U.S. immigration restrictions U.S. Immigration Service U.S.-Mexico border U.S.-Mexico borderlands undocumented Mexican University Press unsanctioned border crossings unsanctioned Mexican immigration unsanctioned migration Valley violence Wilmoth