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U.S. Border Patrol

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Painting of cavalry with swords drawn heading into U.S.-Mexico War battle.

American Extremism Has Always Flowed from the Border

Donald Trump says there is “a crisis of the soul” at the border. He is right, though not in the way he thinks.
by Greg Grandin via Boston Review on January 9, 2019

Washington Trained Guatemala’s Mass Murderers—and the Border Patrol Played a Role

Now two Guatemalan children have died under Border Patrol custody. But the agency’s role in Latin American oppression has a long history.
by Greg Grandin, Elizabeth Oglesby via The Nation on January 3, 2019

Who Killed Jakelin Caal Maquín at the US Border?

She died of cardiac arrest, but the real killer was decades of US policy in Central America.
by Greg Grandin, Elizabeth Oglesby via The Nation on December 17, 2018
US soldiers use tear gas to “flush” women and children from hiding in Vietnam, 1966.

Tear Gas and the U.S. Border

How did it come to pass that a weapon banned for military use was deployed against asylum-seekers on the U.S. border?
by Stuart Schrader via Process: A Blog for American History on December 6, 2018
partner

A Bullet Can Cross the Border. Can the Constitution? The Supreme Court Won’t Say.

The Supreme Court punts on Hernandez v. Mesa, leaving the Constitution lost in the borderlands.
by Sarah A. Seo via Made By History on June 27, 2017

The Disastrous, Forgotten 1996 Law That Created Today's Immigration Problem

Why the Clinton Administration is to blame for creating a permanent underclass of undocumented immigrants.
by Dara Lind via Vox on April 28, 2016
Painting by Hiroki Kawanabe titled Wide Street.

Legacies of Japanese American Incarceration

Brandon Shimoda’s book about the memorialization of Japanese internment camps also speaks to the brutal system of migrant detention that continues to this day.
by Francisco Cantú via New York Review of Books on April 3, 2025
President Eisenhower; The silhouette of a hand pressing into a fence that is blocking the American flag.

The Shaky History of Mass Deportations

‘Operation Wetback’ and ‘Mexican Repatriation’ worked—until they didn’t.
by Benjamin Montoya via The Dispatch on March 5, 2025
A drawing of two parents and a child running at a border, their silhouettes being sliced by a chainlink fence.

The Crime of Human Movement

Two recent books about our immigration system reveal its long history of exploiting vulnerable individuals for financial gain.
by Coco Fusco via New York Review of Books on October 31, 2024
1882 newspaper headline following the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The 100-Year-Old Racist Law that Broke America’s Immigration System

The legacy of the Immigration Act of 1924 and the launching of the Border Patrol, which inaugurated the most restrictive era of US immigration until our own.
by Mae Ngai via Public Books on May 28, 2024
Collage of photographs of U.S. Border Patrol.

The Racist Origins of America’s Broken Immigration System

How a little-known, century-old law perpetuated the odious notion that certain types of immigrants degrade our nation’s character.
by Felipe De La Hoz via The New Republic on May 1, 2024
An electrified barbed-wire fence around Fort Bliss in El Paso, Tex., near the Mexican border, in 1915 or 1916.

The Long, Ugly History of Barbed Wire at the U.S.-Mexico Border

The first barbed wire border fences were proposed to keep out Chinese migrants. They’ve been debated for over a century.
by David Dorado Romo via Retropolis on December 9, 2023
A Mexican family stands next to the border wall between Mexico and the United States, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico on May 23, 2017.
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America’s Border Wall Is Bipartisan

Biden continues a tradition of building fences at the US-Mexico border that long precedes Donald Trump.
by Mary Mendoza via Made By History on October 30, 2023
Drawing depicting different groups of refugees. Above, a white woman carries an infant and holds the hand of a young child. They are wearing yellow and blue--the colors of Ukraine. They are standing on a red carpet, and it is being rolled out for them--an easy entrance amidst barbed wire. Meanwhile, at bottom right, other refugees are obscured in shadow, and covered by a thick red line (potentially another carpet). They are non-white refugees, and their faces are turned away from the viewer.

United States to Refugees: Don't Give us Your Tired, Your Poor!

Putting out the welcome mat for white Christians—while slamming the door in the faces of other migrants—is an American tradition.
by David Nasaw via The Nation on May 9, 2022
Picture of the many different people that make up the US.

The Right to Leave

Thomas Jefferson was a proponent of open migration. But who qualified as a refugee?
by Stephanie Degooyer via Lapham’s Quarterly on March 29, 2022
Drawing of Smedley Butler in front of a map background.

The Marine Who Turned Against U.S. Empire

What turned Smedley Butler into a critic of American foreign policy?
by Patrick Iber via The New Republic on January 11, 2022
A picture of armed militias

What the Term “Gun Culture” Misses About White Supremacy

The rise of tactical gun culture among civilians reveals a new front in the U.S. battle against nativist authoritarianism.
by Chad Kautzer via Boston Review on December 17, 2021
Protesters holding flags of the US and Mexico.
partner

How Prop. 187 Transformed the Immigration Debate and California Politics

Much of the anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy in the news today is similar to a movement that swept the country 20 years ago.
via Retro Report on December 3, 2021
Television camera operator at work.
partner

Latino Empowerment Through Public Broadcasting

How Latinos have used public radio and television to communicate their cultures, histories, hopes, and concerns.
by Alexandra García, Gabriela Rivera via American Archive of Public Broadcasting on November 23, 2021
The cover of Dunbar-Ortiz's book alongside a picture of Mexican workers awaiting entry into the U.S.
partner

The Border and the Contingent Status of Mexican Workers

An excerpt from the most recent book, "Not 'A Nation of Immigrants': Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion."
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz via HNN on August 24, 2021
Photo of immigants being detained.

‘I Became a Jailer’: The Origins of American Immigrant Detention

The massive U.S. apparatus for holding immigrants has a long American tradition.
by Ariel Aberg-Riger, Tanvi Misra via CityLab on July 20, 2021
A teenage boy is vaccinated against smallpox by a school doctor and a county health nurse, 1938.

The U.S. Has Had 'Vaccine Passports' Before—And They Worked

History shows that the benefits of such a system can extend far beyond the venues into which such a passport would grant admission .
by Jordan E. Taylor via TIME on April 5, 2021

The Deportation Machine

A new book documents the history of three specific mechanisms of expulsion: formal deportation, voluntary departure, and "self-deportation."
by Hilary Goodfriend via NACLA on September 25, 2020
A photo of law enforcement emerging from a hazy cloud on a city street.

Trump Has Brought America’s Dirty Wars Home

The authoritarian tactics we’ve exported around the world in the name of national security are now being deployed in Portland.
by Stuart Schrader via The New Republic on July 21, 2020

The Invention of the Police

Why did American policing get so big, so fast? The answer, mainly, is slavery.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on July 13, 2020
An outline of the United States filled with black figures who are outlined by a continuous white line.

"Other": A Brief History of American Xenophobia

The United States often touts itself as a "nation of immigrants," but this obscures the real story.
via Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment on July 11, 2020

America’s Long War on Children and Families

Trump’s family separation policy belongs to a much longer history of U.S. government forces taking children from families that don't match the American ideal.
by Paul M. Renfro via Boston Review on June 22, 2020
People standing in line at a detention center, watched by an enforcement officer.

America’s Long History of Imprisoning Children

Through slavery, Indian boarding schools, Japanese internment, mass incarceration, and anti-Communist wars against civilian populations in Latin America.
by Laura Briggs via Literary Hub on June 19, 2020
Donald Trump seen through a window reflecting a fence.
partner

President Trump’s Immigration Suspension Has Nothing to Do With Coronavirus

Restrictionists have long sought to cut U.S. immigration — to zero.
by Carly Goodman via Made By History on April 22, 2020

The Immigration Crisis Archive

How did today's bipartisan understanding of immigration—as an intolerable threat that justifies any means to stop it—take hold?
by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández via Public Books on October 25, 2019
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