“Too Bad I’m Not an Obvious Citizen”: The Effects of Racialized U.S. Immigration Enforcement...

Original Artic le

“Too Bad I ’m Not an ObviousCit izen” : The effects of racial ized USimmigrat ion enforcement pract iceson second-generat ion Mexican youth

Christ ina M. Getr ichUniversity of New Mexico, New Mexico

Abstract Over the last two decades, border residents have come under increasedsurveillance during stepped-up policing of the US-Mexico border. Second-generationMexican youth – the US born children of immigrants – should be insulated frommistreatment by immigration officials. However, racialized immigration enforcementpractices target these teenagers who are coming of age in this borderland milieu.Drawing from extensive fieldwork conducted with 54 teenagers in San Diego, thisarticle describes how immigration enforcement practices reinforce a racialized form ofbelonging that has negative effects on youth, but also highlights how these youth deploystrategies of resistance to contest them.Latino Studies (2013) 11, 462–482. doi:10.1057/lst.2013.28

Keywords: immigration enforcement; border surveillance; racialization; identity; socialbelonging; Mexican youth

Introduction

Like many residents of San Diego and Tijuana entitled to cross the US-Mexicoborder “legally,” 16-year old Paloma Santos1 frequently shuffles between dif-ferent family members’ houses in the twin border cities. Paloma describes theprocess of crossing: “The [U.S.] immigration officials are really mean every singletime I cross. They treat me like I shouldn’t be coming here. I guess I must look real

1 All names ofpeople and placesare pseudonymsused to protect the

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Mexican or something. But I don’t know see [why they] ask so many questionsif I have a paper that says I’m an American citizen.” As citizens by birthright,second-generation Mexican youth2 – the US-born children of first-generationimmigrants – should enjoy the full range of rights and benefits associated with UScitizenship, including that their membership go unquestioned.3 However, in theborderland milieu, residents of all immigration statuses have come under the ever-intensifying gaze of various enforcement agencies during stepped-up borderpolicing over the last two decades (Nevins, 2002; Inda, 2006a; Dunn, 2010).

The sociopolitical category of the “illegal immigrant” – signifying a law-breaker who does not have “legal” permission to reside within the territorialUnited States – provides the justification for the surveillance of all individualswho are seen as potentially “illegal” (DeGenova, 2002; Inda, 2006a). But because“illegal immigrant” is a social construction, its boundaries are not clear inpractice, even to the immigration officials who are tasked with enforcement.Immigration enforcement activities therefore, often extend beyond undocumen-ted immigrants to target non-white US citizens, including borderland teenagers.These teens recount their sometimes-frequent and generally unpleasant encoun-ters with officials who repeatedly question their membership, as Palomadescribed, and require them to prove that they legitimately belong in the UnitedStates. Such encounters make clear that borders involve not merely delineatingand protecting state sovereignty but are also central in demarcating the socialboundaries of citizenship and belonging (Behdad, 2005, 145).

In this article, I examine immigration enforcement in the San Diego–Tijuanaregion and how this system of surveillance has infiltrated the lives of teenagers –an understudied segment of borderlanders (Bejarano, 2005; Aiken and Plows,2010; Bejarano, 2010; Mendoza Inzunza and Fernández Huerta, 2010).I demonstrate how these teenagers experience, understand and negotiate suchencounters with immigration enforcement. My focus is on the quotidian presenceof the state in the lives of borderlanders – and the ways that these routine practicescollectively contribute to the racialization of non-white US citizens in the borderregion (Romero, 2006; Rosas, 2006b; Goldsmith et al, 2009). While the nominalpurpose of border policing is to monitor the international geopolitical border, theseborder enforcement policies and practices reinforce a racialized form of belongingthat has negative implications on second-generation youth. Yet, within thiscontext, second-generation youth have also cultivated strategies of transformativeresistance that allow them to contest the infringement of their rights.

The Escalat ion of Immigration Enforcement in the US-MexicoBorderlands and Beyond

“Border control” has emerged as a normal facet of life in the San Diego–Tijuanaregion; however, it was not always so ever-present a phenomenon. Starting in the

anonymity ofresearchparticipants.

2 The secondgeneration iscomprised ofthose who wereborn in the UnitedStates toimmigrantparents. The term1.5 generationrefers to childrenborn abroad buteducated (partiallyor completely) inthe United States.Hereafter, I referto both 1.5- andsecond-generationyouth by the labelsecond generation.I use the labelMexican becausemost of the teensin my study mostfrequently self-identified as such.The teens’predominant useof the labelMexican issignificant in thatit encompasses allthe people ofMexican descentin their lives,regardless ofimmigrationstatus.

3 By stating thatsecond-generationyouth are entitledto these rights andprotections as UScitizens, I am notsuggesting thatundocumentedimmigrants shouldbe excluded fromthem. Indeed asDunn (2010, 10)

Racialized immigration enforcement and Mexican youth

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early 1920s and continuing through the 1970s, the border was essentially a“revolving door,” with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)alternating periods of letting immigrants through and deporting them en massedepending on the needs of US economic interests (Cockcroft, 1986; Dunn, 1996,11; Nevins, 2002, 35). However, since its establishment in 1924, the US BorderPatrol has perpetuated violence against local border populations with the initialinterest in protecting Anglo-American settlements and subsequently under theguise of controlling human mobility at the border (Hernández, 2010, 19). Inaddition to policing individuals of Mexican descent, Border Patrol agentssubjected Native Americans to early forms of state violence (20) – and continueto do so as border enforcement infringes on the mobility and rights of tribes withmembers on both sides of the border, such as the Tohono O’odham and theKumeyaay (Luna-Firebaugh, 2002).

Explicit border control strategies were first implemented in the late 1970s/early1980s through low-intensity conflict (LIC) doctrine techniques (Dunn, 1996).LIC doctrine was created to establish social control over civilian populations inLatin American and other “third world” countries through the incrementalintroduction of force and coordinated efforts between police, paramilitary andmilitary forces (4). The adaptation of LIC techniques to the US-Mexico borderresulted in its steady militarization throughout the 1980s and early 1990s (3). TheINS launched targeted operations, including Operation Gatekeeper in SouthernCalifornia on 1 October 1994. Gatekeeper aimed to “close” the revolving doorby forcing migrant traffic from dense urban areas to more remote terrain wherecrossing was less visible through an approach called “prevention throughdeterrence” (Nevins, 2002; Dunn, 2010). Gatekeeper flourished because of aninfusion of resources and technology that included three-tiered steel fencing,stadium-style lighting, motion and sound detectors, infrared night scopes, andmilitary-style helicopter patrols designed to reach remote locations (Nevins,2002; Inda, 2006a, b; Dunn, 2010). In addition, federal agents became ever-morereliant upon databases that monitored individuals’ immigration transactions,created automated fingerprint records, consolidated intelligence at ports of entryand linked immigration information to the national criminal database (Heyman,1999, 433–434).

Other border control operations that debuted elsewhere along the border in themid-1990s, such as operations Hold-the-Line, Safeguard and Rio Grande, havebeen described (along with Gatekeeper) as “spectacles” (DeGenova, 2002, 436)because they represent a symbolic show of force as opposed to effective policyinitiatives (Andreas, 2000; DeGenova, 2002, 436; Nevins, 2002; Dunn 2010, 2).Despite the dramatics of these operations, border control is recognized as largelyineffectual (Heyman, 1999, 295; Heyman, 1998, 162), a poor deterrent formigrants (Andreas and Biersteker, 2003, 4), and an enormous waste of taxpayermoney (Massey et al, 2002, 140). Ultimately, these border operations have raisedthe costs and risks associated with crossing, forced migrants to be ever-more

argues, anoverriding focuson citizenship andnationalsovereignty at theborder obscuresthe human rights,well-being anddignity of non-citizens. Giventhat my researchparticipants werelargely citizens,though, thepurpose of thearticle is todemonstrate theeffects of borderpolicing policiesand practices onUS citizens ofMexican descentin addition totheirundocumentedfriends and familymembers.

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dependent on human smugglers, and made smuggling practices more dangerousand deadly (Heyman, 1998, 164; Cornelius, 2001, 667; Rosas, 2006b).Immigrant deaths have skyrocketed, with a marked increase in deaths attribu-table to such environmental causes as dehydration, heat stroke or hypothermia(Eschbach et al, 1999; Cornelius, 2001). The strategy has resulted in 4600recorded deaths between 1994 and 2007 (Dunn, 2010, 2) though the actualnumber is estimated to be much higher.

Border surveillance efforts intensified after the events of September 11, 2001,when immigrants were redefined as a problem of national security (Jonas, 2006,9). Indicative of this fusion between national security and immigration, INS wasabsorbed within the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inMarch 2003. The “war on terror” soon became a war on all immigrants. Racialprofiling in law enforcement came to be viewed as an acceptable means ofprotecting the homeland, despite its detrimental effects on Latino and African-American communities (Hernández, 2008).

The “immigrants as a threat to national security” narrative became reified infederal legislation in the decade following 9/11, such as the 2001 PATRIOT Act,which authorized federal officials to detain a broad class of non-citizens withoutlegal review and immediate disclosure of specific charges (Coleman, 2007, 60).The 2005 Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act(H.R. 4437) sought to criminalize undocumented immigrants and make theirpresence in the United States a felony instead of a civil offense. Though H.R. 4437was defeated in the US Senate, such legislative initiatives are part of a larger – andgrowing – trend: the criminalization of immigrants (Coleman, 2007, 56), whichalso involves the expansion of immigrant detention, the fastest growing form ofincarceration (Hernández, 2008, 36).

Another facet of the expanding criminalization of immigrants is the devolutionof immigration enforcement from federal immigration officials to state entitiesand local police officers (Rosas, 2006a; Inda, 2006a; Coleman, 2007). In fact,there have been a record number of deportations under the Obama administra-tion, including through the controversial Secure Communities program, whichchecks the immigration status of individuals fingerprinted at state and local jailsand notifies immigration authorities accordingly (Bennett, 2011). The devolutionof power to states solidified most conspicuously in the form of Arizona’s SenateBill 1070, passed in April 2010. SB 1070 aimed to identify, prosecute and deportillegal immigrants in Arizona. It granted law-enforcement officers the ability toask about a person’s legal status and stipulated that a person’s failure to carryimmigration documents was itself a crime. Critics identified SB 1070 as thebroadest and strictest immigration measure in generations, arguing that it alsosanctioned racial profiling on the part of local officers (Archibold, 2010).A December 2011 US Department of Justice report documented a pervasivepattern of “unconstitutional policing” of Latinos for detention and arrest inArizona’s Maricopa County, despite the fact that SB 1070 was not implemented



because it was blocked by a federal judge the day before it was to go into effect(Lacey, 2011).

Though the US Supreme Court struck down three provisions as violations ofthe Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution in June 2012, SB 1070 continued toserve as a model for other states (Gorman, 2010) – including Alabama, Georgia,Indiana, South Carolina and Utah – drawing immigration enforcement efforts awayfrom the border itself into local communities nationwide. In 2012 alone, statelegislatures introduced nearly 1000 bills and enacted 267 laws and resolutions –

many with a restrictionist tenor (National Council of State Legislatures, 2013).In fact, in the absence of broader federal immigration reform, interior

enforcement operations have escalated dramatically – and are predicted tocontinue to do so (Coleman, 2007). These interior operations, including bothworkplace and home raids, initially increased under the Bush administration andcontinue to do so under Obama. The raids have negatively affected mixedimmigration status families, as undocumented parents have been summarilydeported and separated from their citizen-children without being able to ensurethat the children are properly cared for (Capps et al, 2007). In addition, a March2010 DHS report demonstrated that officials carrying out these localized raidsare not always properly trained; consequently, detainees’ civil rights are notsystematically protected (Preston, 2010).

Border enforcement has formed the centerpiece of US immigration policy fordecades (Dunn, 2010). However, as enforcement operations continue to expandto the US interior, it is of growing importance to examine the effects of theseenforcement activities on local populations – both immigrant and non-immi-grant. Because these enforcement efforts have been operating in border commu-nities for nearly two decades, they provide an important site from which toobserve and theorize about the consequences of this strengthening surveillanceregime (Heyman, 1999, 430) on local populations, including US citizens.

Theoriz ing Racial ized Immigration Enforcement

Despite being predicated on principles of equality and fairness, US citizenship hasalways been infused with social hierarchy, produced and continually redefined bythe state (DeGenova and Ramos-Zayas, 2003, 213). From the beginning, white-ness served as a core component of US citizenship and was reinforced through thelaw (Haney López, 1996, 2) as racial/ethnic groups like African Americans,Native Americans and Asian Americans were systematically excluded from beingcitizens. The institution of US citizenship itself has thus served as a mode forproducing social inequality (DeGenova and Ramos-Zayas, 2003, 3).

Citizenship is also intricately connected with US immigration law, which hasproduced sociopolitical categories like citizens, who are the legitimate members

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of the nation-state, and “illegal” immigrants, who are not. Immigrant “illegality”is, in fact, inseparable from citizenship (DeGenova, 2002, 436); it is a politicalidentity that encapsulates the relationship of immigrants to the state and isproduced by the legal system (DeGenova, 2002, 422; Rosas, 2006b, 404). Theacademic examination of immigrant “illegality” emerged through ethno-graphically grounded studies of the everyday lives and experiences of undocu-mented immigrants (DeGenova, 2002, 420) as they navigated the social space of“illegality” in distinct ways (Coutin, 2000; DeGenova and Ramos-Zayas, 2003;DeGenova, 2005). The category of the “illegal” has also been reified in publicdiscourse, in which Mexicans in particular are portrayed as the quintessential“illegal aliens” (Chavez, 2008, 3), a term that is particularly infused withracialized difference (DeGenova and Ramos-Zayas, 2003, 3).

“Illegality” is not merely an abstract condition but has emerged as a resultof the deliberate set of tactics the US nation-state has deployed to create andsustain the legally vulnerable condition of deportability (DeGenova, 2005, 8). AsRomero (2008, 28) points out, because immigration status is a social construc-tion, it is “not complete without policing and surveillance.” Rosas (2006b, 404)expands upon “illegality” through his concept of “policeability,” which char-acterizes a system of racialized management through which both the undocu-mented and “those who resemble them” are subject to surveillance and state-mandated policing. Policeability more explicitly highlights the normative notionsof citizenship and whiteness in the borderlands (404).

These tactics of policeability result in a racialized law enforcement approach inwhich physical appearance serves as a way of controlling certain racial and ethnicgroups (Romero, 2008, 27). This “form of racial governance” (Rosas, 2006a,340) was codified in the 1975 Supreme Court decision in United States v.Brignoni-Ponce, which established that “Mexican appearance” was sufficientgrounds for citizenship inspection (Romero, 2006, 453; Goldsmith et al, 2009,97). The decision in effect established that a person’s appearance could serve as“reasonable suspicion” or “probable cause” and in so doing set up a system inwhich Mexicans and others are denied equal protection under the law (Romero,2006, 451). These repressive forms of violence are justified and legitimated in thename of fighting illegal immigration (Goldsmith et al, 2009, 117).

Romero points out that immigration research has typically ignored the costspaid by Latinos who are implicated by US immigration policies (Romero, 2006,450). Indeed, the surveillance of citizenship is most highly concentrated in poor andworking-class Latino neighborhoods (Romero, 2006, 453; Goldsmith et al, 2009,96). The scale of impact of racialized immigration law enforcement is elusive, asimmigration agencies do not collect systematic data on citizens and legal residentswho are stopped and searched (Romero, 2006, 453). Human rights groups,however, have been documenting charges of violence and harassment againstimmigration authorities – including perpetuated against US citizens of color – sincethe border operations were introduced in the 1990s (see Getrich et al, 2000).



Scholars have also been documenting interactions between immigrationofficials and local border community residents. Romero examined a high-profileimmigration raid in Chandler, Arizona, demonstrating how it functioned as apolicing practice to reinforce the subordinated status of working-class US citizensand legal residents of Mexican descent (Romero, 2006, 450–451; Romero,2008). Romero and her colleagues also found a systematic pattern of immigrationofficials’ mistreatment of residents of all immigration statuses in their survey ofSouth Tucson, Arizona households (Goldsmith et al, 2009). In his examination ofthe longitudinal effects of Operation Blockade in El Paso, Dunn (2010, 182)argues that the operation actually alleviated some of the aggressive enforcementpractices that pre-dated it in South El Paso and neighborhoods near the RioGrande River, but that these racialized enforcement practices have more recentlyre-emerged.

This article documents racialized immigration enforcement practices in SanDiego, one of the most militarized segments of the border (16). It is within thiscontext of racialized immigration enforcement that second-generation youthin San Diego are coming of age and trying to make sense of who they are andwhere they belong. Social belonging, however, is dialectically determined by thenation-state and its inhabitants (Espiritu, 2003; Ong, 2003) – both “legal” and“illegal” – meaning that it is important to understand both how nation-statespolice and attempt to enforce belonging but also how people in turn respond tothese enforcement efforts.

Conducting Research with Borderland Teenagers

This article draws upon fieldwork conducted in a southeast San Diego neigh-borhood primarily between July 2005 and August 2006. The neighborhood,which has a rich history as one of San Diego’s oldest communities, is located inthe shadow of downtown San Diego and within 15 miles of the US-Mexicoborder. The hub of the neighborhood is a large park where numerous socialevents take place, ranging from celebrations of Mexican Independence Day tolow-rider car shows to protests on social issues like immigration. An unmistak-able spirit of Mexican pride is evidenced in brightly colored murals that displaythe red, white and green of the Mexican flag and imagery of Aztec warriors andMexican folk heroes.

Despite its rich history and vibrant character, the neighborhood also faceschallenges. Public safety is a concern for residents, with homelessness, drug useand gang activity making the park and neighborhood more broadly somewhatunsafe, especially for children. Residents also contend with industrialized airpollution, substandard housing, overcrowded schools, and inadequate healthcare and social services. The median household income of the neighborhood was

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estimated to around $27,000 in 2010, with approximately 40 per cent of thepopulation living below the poverty level (SANDAG, 2011). Neighborhoodresidents are overwhelmingly (86 per cent) Latino; 76 per cent of residents aged5 years and above reported using Spanish as the primary language at home(2011).

I conducted research with 54 second-generation Mexican teenagers andtheir parents4 who live in the barrio. These teens were all part of mixed-statusfamilies – families that contain some combination of US citizens, legal immigrantsand/or undocumented immigrants (Fix and Zimmerman, 2001). At the turn ofthe twenty-first century, one in 10 US children belonged to a mixed-status family;in California, that number was even higher, at three in 10 (Fix et al, 2001).Most of the teens’ parents had migrated from Mexico to the United States in the1980s – 1990s; the majority of them were undocumented at some point, thoughmany had subsequently become lawful permanent residents or US citizens.

The teens all participated in an afterschool program at a community-basednon-profit where for 15 months I tutored and mentored them, joining in theirdaily activities and participating in other off-site special events outside of theneighborhood, like community service projects and college visit trips. In additionto participant observation, I utilized semi-structured interviews, focus groups, asurvey, freelisting activities and Photovoice5 with the teens and conducted ahousehold survey with a parent/guardian from each family. These methodsallowed me to understand more about such domains as the teens’ householdcomposition and family characteristics, neighborhood dynamics, school and workexperiences, friendships, ethnicity and identity, language use, relationship with familymembers in Mexico, participation in transnational life, immigration, border enforce-ment, and citizenship/belonging. This article draws particularly on interviews, the teensurvey, participant observation and Photovoice, whichwere the primarymethods thatgenerated insights about their experiences with border enforcement.

Navigating the “Everydayness” of State Power at BorderCrossings and Beyond

Border enforcement activities strongly infiltrated the everyday lives of theborderland teenagers with whom I conducted research. Heyman (1998, 166)uses the term cotidianidad (everydayness)6 to encapsulate this form of statepower – the constant awareness of the presence of immigration officials in bordercommunities and the accompanying wariness borderlanders have of them. In thissection, I describe ethnographically the teens’ everyday encounters with statepower in the form of immigration enforcement – both at border inspectionpoints at the international boundary as well as during everyday life in theneighborhood – and explore their understandings of these episodes.

4 Forty-two of theseteens were highschool students,while theremaining 12 werecollege studentswho were in highschool when I metthem in 2004. Inthis article, Iidentify the teensby the age thatthey were duringmy primary periodof research in2005–2006.

5 Freelisting is atechnique inwhich a concept isintroduced andparticipantsgenerate lists ofwords that theyassociate with thatconcept. Iconductedfreelisting as ameans ofunderstandinghow the teensunderstoodconcepts such ascitizenship,immigrant andcitizen.Photovoice is atechnique wherecommunitymembersphotographicallydocument theireveryday lifeconditions inorder to promotecritical dialogue



“When I was younger , I ’d always get terr ible butterfl ies in mystomach because I was so nervous” : Immigrat ion inspectionsat border crossings

Though few of the teens I surveyed cross the border literally every day, crossing isfor them a fairly commonplace experience.7 They participate in transnational lifeby visiting family members, celebrating holidays, eating out, going to parties,shopping, seeing movies, playing soccer, seeing bullfights, going to concerts andvisiting the doctor/dentist.8 Older teens who can drive go to “T.J.”9 even morefrequently. Most cross the international US-Mexico boundary at the San Ysidroor Otay Mesa ports of entry10 – the physical checkpoints through which cargoand visitors entering the United States pass (Heyman, 2004, 303).

Border crossings at the ports of entry are managed through inspection stationswhere decisions are made about whether particular individuals may – or maynot – enter the territorial boundaries of the nation-state. Border crossers passthrough the international boundary (in both directions) either on foot or by car.Walkers are subject to an individual inspection; if a set of individuals are togetherin a car, the car as a unit is inspected. To reach this inspection point, the bordercrosser waits in a line until s/he reaches an agent, located inside a building(if crossing on foot) or in a booth (if crossing by car). Arriving at the front of theline, crossers encounter Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, whoevaluate would-be entrants through a process known as inspection (Lugo, 2000;Heyman, 2004, 307). “Primary inspection” involves an agent making a rapiddetermination (on average, within 30 seconds) whether the individual beinginterviewed should be allowed to enter the United States (Heyman, 2004, 308).If the border crosser does not “pass” the agent’s initial examination, s/he may besent to “secondary inspection,” also known colloquially as revision (or revisión inSpanish), where definitive decisions are made about the case, ultimately leading toadmission, rejection, arrest or prosecution (308).

Typically, the crosser presents documentation to prove that s/he should beallowed to cross. Before January 2008, it was not mandatory to possess apassport or formal crossing document; alternate documents, such as a driver’slicense or school identification card, were adequate. Regardless of documentationtype, CBP agents make inferences about the crosser based on visual cues, verbalcues and responses to the agent’s questions (308). Agents ask crossers about theircitizenship and visa status, their activities in Mexico, and their intended activitiesin the United States. The individual CBP agent wields substantial power to makedeterminations about the individual border crosser, though these determinationsare not necessarily consistent and fairly applied to each individual (314). Theseinspections can be aggressive, to the point of representing a form of ritualizedviolence (Bejarano, 2010). The risk and uncertainty renders the border-crossingexperience quite stressful for many individuals – including those who have everylegitimate right to cross the border.

about issues ofconcern to thecommunity(Wang and Burris,1994, 171).

6 According toHeyman (1998,166), the termcotidianidad wascoined by theImmigration LawEnforcementMonitoringProject of theAmerican FriendsServiceCommittee(AFSC). AFSC is aQuaker-foundedhuman rightsorganization thatpromotes socialjustice throughoutthe world. Iconducted myMaster’s researchwith AFSC’s US-Mexico BorderProgram in SanDiego in 2000.

7 Though Lugo(2000) critiquesthe use of theacademic andtheoretical phrase“bordercrossing,” I usethis terminologybecause it is, infact, the way thatmany borderlandresidents refer toit.

8 The teensreported thesereasons for goingto Mexico and thefrequency withwhich theyparticipated inthesetransnational

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Even though they have this right, the teens generally reported crossing theborder to be a nerve-wracking experience. Many had early memories ofconfusion or fear. Sixteen-year-old Isabel, who crosses on a regular basis to seeher extended family in Tijuana, recalled, “When I used to cross when I wasyounger I’d always get butterflies in my stomach, like terrible butterflies. And [myfamily members] would be like, ‘Why are you scared?’ Before I crossed the borderI always went to the store and bought gum – it’s something I always did …

because I was so nervous.” Even though Isabel could not completely articulate herreasons for her nervousness when she was younger, she was acutely aware of thestressful nature of the inspection process.

Eighteen-year-old Esperanza reported feeling a gnawing sense of nervousnesswhenever she crossed the border. Esperanza crosses the border multiple timeseach month to visit with her brother and his family, who live in Tijuana. WhenI asked her to describe what it was like to cross the border during an interview,she responded:

Esperanza: My dad always tells me to get my ID out probably every20 minutes before we get to the actual border line. He always tellsme what to say. He says, ‘Make sure you don’t stumble, I don’twant to end up in revision.’ So we get there and the man takes ourIDs and looks at them and then asks me more questions to makesure that I know San Diego.

Christina: What kinds of questions do they ask you?Esperanza: They’ll be like, ‘Where were you born? What’s your address?

What school do you go to? What classes are you taking in school?’Something that will give him a clue that, yes, I am a U.S. citizen.And he does the same to my dad, asking, ‘Where do you work?What language do you speak? When did you get naturalized?’ Sohe has to have that all in mind.

Christina: So how do you feel during that questioning?Esperanza: Well, I get very nervous because I know that even though I am a US

citizen, there’s still that chance that they could hold me back andrevise me and that will just take the whole night and I have schoolthe next day.

Esperanza’s account includes a very real fear for US citizens crossing theborder – that they will be detained in such a manner that it interferes with school,work or other responsibilities. Esperanza’s concern about getting stopped waslegitimate, given that family members have actually been detained in this mannerbefore. Esperanza told me a story about her older brother, Adán, who lives inTijuana but works in the United States:

My brother is a U.S. citizen and he was crossing the border – he passes everyday. One time this dog, for no reason, just came up to his car and started

activities in thesurvey. I alsorecorded in mynotes duringfieldwork reasonsfor going toMexico as theybecame evident.

9 When speakingEnglish, the teens(and other locals)refer to Tijuanasimply as T.J.

10 San Ysidro andOtay Mesa are thetwo largest portsof entry in SanDiego County.California has atotal of 20 ports ofentry, includingairports.



barking. He didn’t have anything in his car – he was just going to work. Thedog wouldn’t stop barking. So the agents came in and they took him out ofthe car and they started checking his car for things. They handcuffed himand he was so embarrassed. He was tired so he didn’t really put up a bigfight, like, ‘Why are you guys checking me? Where are my rights?’ Theydidn’t find anything in his car, but still, I mean – he’s a U.S. citizen. I don’tknow, I just felt that was unfair and unnecessary and made him late to hisjob, which he could’ve gotten fired from. I just don’t think that was right.

Esperanza recalled the embarrassment that her brother felt when he wasstopped by the CBP agents and the injustice that he – and she, on his behalf –felt for being falsely accused and having his citizenship questioned. Sherecognized that his rights as a US citizen had been compromised. Even thoughEsperanza knew that her brother was not doing anything wrong in crossingthe border, she still felt a sense of caution and wariness every time she gets inthe border line because of these past experiences of unpleasantness andhumiliation.

Paz, a 19-year old, told me about a dramatic event she experienced with herfamily once when they were trying to cross back into the United States. Paz’sfamily is quite binational; her grandmother – who raised her for the first six yearsof her life – lives in Tijuana. Paz, her brother, their mother and other extendedfamily members go to Tijuana frequently to visit with her grandmother, but alsofor reasons such as receiving medical care. Paz explained that when her cousinsget sick, her mother often takes them to Tijuana as the children do not have healthinsurance and their father is undocumented. One time as they crossed, Pazrecounted:

[The immigration officials] were like, ‘I don’t think this girl is a U.S. citizen’about my cousin. They were suspicious because the kids were my uncle’sand he wasn’t there. We were surprised. Normally we would just say like,‘Oh, we’re U.S. citizens’ or whatever and it’s not usually a problem. But [thistime] they ended up taking us away. It was really bad. I rememberwe were like all huddled in some office on the floor for hours and hours.We were all crying and crying and crying.

While Paz’s family was eventually released, the event was traumatic and madea lasting impression on her.

The teens also felt that the CBP agents often questioned them too aggressivelyand intrusively, even though they should be able to cross without incident.Fifteen-year-old Amada identified herself as a “daily crosser.” She was born in theUnited States, but, like Paz, spent her early childhood in Tijuana. Amada’s familymaintains a residence in Tijuana that is, in fact, their preferred residence(the house is larger and in a better neighborhood than their San Diego house).The family goes down to Tijuana virtually every weekend, as well as other times

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during the week. She expressed that agents scrutinize her excessively duringinspection, elaborating:

I remember one time when I was coming with my dad they asked, ‘Whoimmigrated you?’ What kind of question is that for a 6-year old! Anothertime they askedme, ‘Are you running away from home?’ and I was like, ‘Whywould I do that!’ It’s nonsense. And yeah, I know it’s their job, but sometimesthe questions are too much. They’re like, ‘What were you doing there? Whatare you bringing back?’ And sometimes it’s really repetitive, especially since Icross every day. They’ll be like, ‘I saw you yesterday –what were you doing inMexico again?’ And I’m like, ‘It’s none of your business!’

While questioning individuals is within the realm of what CBP agents’ jobsentail, ethno-racial profiling is not. However, in practice, darker-skinned peopleare more likely to be treated unfairly during the border-crossing encounter (Lugo,2000, 360; Bejarano, 2010, 394). In fact, Lugo (2000, 360) argues that skin-coloridentification is actually the first component of border inspections. Though in itsearly days, Border Patrol agents were predominantly white and had the explicitgoal of policing the boundaries between whites and non-whites in the region(Hernández, 2010), the ethnic/racial composition of the Border Patrol force hassubsequently shifted. By 2008, over half (51 per cent) of agents were Latino,45 per cent were white, 1.2 per cent were African-American and 1 per cent wereAsian (Pinkerton, 2008). Heyman (2002) and Rosas (2006b) have described howeven given the shifting demographics of the Border Patrol force, agents of allbackgrounds rely not only on skin color but also on cues about supposedforeignness, adding another layer of complication to the system of racializedgovernance. Anecdotally, many teens told me that agents of Mexican descent areindeed some of the harshest.

Esperanza reflected on the implications of skin color and perceived citizenshipon one’s border inspection experience in the following exchange:

Christina: So do the agents bother you a lot while you’re crossing?Esperanza: Yes. This one day when I forgot my ID, he was being really rude

to me. I guess I can understand because I think it makes their jobseasier if you have an ID with you, but, I mean, there’s always goingto be those cases that you don’t. I don’t know … it’s too bad I’mnot an obvious citizen.

Christina: So what would you say is an obvious citizen?Esperanza: I don’t know. I think maybe if I was white and blond haired they’d

let me go by faster.Christina: So just because you’re Mexican they feel like they can stop you?Esperanza: Yeah. Especially because of my skin color. I’m dark – you can totally

tell I’m not like Caucasian or anything. So you can say, oh well, she’sHispanic. You can classify me easily. I think that’s what they do.



Christina: Does that bother you?Esperanza: Yes. I mean, as humans we categorize people and I know it’s their

job to make sure no illegal people cross. But it does bother mebecause it just makes me nervous when I really shouldn’t feelnervous about it because I was born [in the United States].

Like Esperanza, most of the teens were directly critical of the border-crossingprocess, in particular because it unfairly targets them and their family members.Much of their discussion of this unfairness pertained to the fact that they feltthat they were “legitimate” US citizens or residents who deserved to cross withoutbeing hassled. Esperanza’s 14-year-old sister Victoria, who also crosses fre-quently to see her brother and his family in Tijuana, mused, “You’re alwaysthinking, why isn’t there a better way to do this? I guess there isn’t, but, hopefully,they can come up with something because that’s really a hassle, especially ifyou’re U.S. citizens who are really U.S. citizens. We just want to come in and outand not be bothered.”

“Every time I see a white van I get a l itt le nervous and justwalk a different route” : The spi l lover of immigrationenforcement into border communit ies

Borderlanders’ encounters with state power are, however, not restricted to theports of entry; indeed immigration officials have an “inescapable presence”(Lugo, 2000, 354) throughout the broader region. The Border Patrol has powersof search and seizure at fixed checkpoints (such as the one in San Clemente justbeyond northern San Diego County) or within 20 miles of the boundary(Heyman, 1998, 16). Border Patrol agents frequently patrol neighborhoods closeto the border or that are heavily Mexican in composition in their ubiquitouswhite-with-green-trim SUVs. Indeed, residential segregation – the institutionalpractice responsible for the construction of barrios – provides a mechanism forconcentrating surveillance efforts (Goldsmith et al, 2009, 116). The ever-presenceof immigration agents renders local residents a policed population (Heyman,1998, 159).

Latino borderlanders of every immigration status are affected by the “spilloverfrom border control” (166) because it can be difficult to determine the legal statusof individuals merely by looking at them. Nonetheless, Border Patrol agents relyon visual cues to identify would-be undocumented immigrants and also fall backon “tacit group stereotypes” in making their assessments (166). The reality is thatundocumented immigrants, legal immigrants and US citizens of Mexican descentmay look similar, making the ability to distinguish between them visually in asnap-judgment – or really, at all – questionable. Nonetheless, all of thesepopulations exist in a state of “policeability,” subject to the “diffuse yetnonetheless potent processes of population management” (Rosas, 2006b).

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The mistreatment of people of Mexican descent creeps into seemingly “safe”places such as neighborhoods, workplaces and schools. Border Patrol presence isstrong in the barrio. Esperanza encapsulated this feeling of the Border Patrolalways being around, stating, “I don’t know if they go undercover or what, or ifthey dress like normal people. But my mom would always tell me they’re in whitevans. So every time I see a white van I get a little nervous, and just walk a differentroute.” I then queried, “Even though you don’t have anything to worry about?”to which Esperanza succinctly answered, “Yeah, I guess it’s just ingrained in me.”Again, Esperanza is a native-born US citizen, meaning that she should havenothing to fear of a potential encounter with Border Patrol agents. Nonetheless,she maintains a fear of their power that actually shapes the way in which shemaneuvers through her neighborhood.

Eighteen-year-old Sal recalled a childhood encounter with Border Patrol agentsin his neighborhood:

Once we were playing freeze tag over there in the apartments when I wasmaybe like 10. I ran outside the complex and I was running like crazy.I didn’t even notice that the Border Patrol was there. They pretty muchthought that I was running because of them. They were like, ‘Hey, stop’ inboth languages. I was like, ‘Okay! I’m just playing freeze tag!’ They didn’tbelieve me at first. So they asked me a couple of questions. And then theywere like, ‘Do you know it’s against the law to run from the Border Patrol?’and I was like, ‘I didn’t even know you guys were out here! We’re justplaying a game.’ And eventually they saw all of the kids coming out andwhat was going on with me and they were like, ‘Okay, we’ll let you go.’ Itwas messed up.

Incidents such as Sal’s inculcate in children both an awareness and fear of theBorder Patrol. That Esperanza and Sal are not able to freely maneuver withintheir neighborhood is evidence of the conspicuous fields of surveillance withinwhich they operate. Esperanza’s sister Victoria characterized this feeling asone of generalized paranoia, describing what life is like for people she knows:“My friend’s cousin, I know him and he’s always kind of paranoid. Like, when[we] were selling tamales [at] church, he saw the Border Patrol and he was like,‘Oh gosh, hide me!’ ” Victoria did not share what the individual’s legal statuswas, but in some ways it is irrelevant since people from a range of statusesreported similar feelings of fear.

Neighborhood streets, apartment complexes and even church property are notnecessarily “safe” spaces, as these accounts have demonstrated. One might thinkthat school would be, though in April 2006 during after school programming atthe center, Amada told me about an incident that took place that signaled just theopposite: “One day, the Border Patrol came to our school – like they were sittingthere just outside of our school. And people were so scared. They were hiding inthe bathrooms, literally. I think that’s terrible. You had students – no matter what



the citizenship – hiding in the bathroom. And it’s just because of the BorderPatrol. It’s sad to me.” Amada perceptively noted that even US citizens ran intothe bathroom, though they had no real reason to be scared.

Paz felt the power of the Border Patrol on her college campus in Pennsylvania,even though they were not physically present. One day while in her dorm roomon campus, she recounted, “I was talking to my mom on the phone – it was finalsweek. All the sudden, she was like, Ay, la migra11 ! and I was like, ‘Where?’[Makes a ducking motion.] I got scared.” I asked, “Even though you were all theway in Pennsylvania?” to which Paz responded, “Yeah, even though I was overthere, I still got scared. And I’m not even illegal!” Paz’s instinctive reaction to hermother’s call that the Border Patrol was present was to duck out of fear. Thus, thesense of fear that Paz felt transcended the physical location of the US-Mexicoborderlands, ever-present in her habitus.

“You get pushed and you kind of push back, too” : Youthresistance to state power

As all of these ethnographic examples have demonstrated, the teens experienceand internalize the “everydayness” of state power; in fact, some teens noted that itwas only when they attended schools in other neighborhoods that they realizedthat immigration officials did not have the same presence everywhere. The teens’accounts of their everyday encounters with officials were peppered with feelingsof fear, trauma, nervousness, unfairness, embarrassment and even resignation.Those who reported having negative encounters with immigration officials often feltindignant about being unfairly targeted, particularly because of their status as citizensand their feelings of legitimacy as such. Though border-control measures areunquestionably oppressive, the US state has not achieved perfect control oversovereign and symbolic borders, as border scholars have long documented (Kearney,1991, 58). For example, innumerable immigrants who are captured and deported findways to successfully cross the militarized border (Heyman, 1998; Rosas, 2006a, b),engaging in “the art of undermining the state” (Rosas, 2006b, 409).

Borderland youth have found particularly creative strategies for manipulatingthis state power (Rosas, 2006b), cultivating strategies of transformative resistancethat allow them to contest the infringement of their rights and tap into their localknowledge bases (Bejarano, 2010). Paulina, for instance, revealed, “It so pissesme off when we cross the border and they’re like, ‘Why were you in Mexico?’ I’mlike, ‘Because I can be. Because I want to be. Because I have the right to come overhere.’ I tell my mom that it pisses me off because I was born here with a socialsecurity card in my hand.” Paulina is assertive and does not hold back in her(frequent) interactions with immigration officials. Sal similarly felt that theencounters with agents forced him into defensive mode, relating, “You getpushed and you kind of push back, too.”

11 La migra is thecolloquial term inSpanish used torefer to BorderPatrol or otheruniformed CBP orICE officers.

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Other teens shared their own creative ways of maneuvering around statepower. Isabel described the way in which her group of friends – of mixedimmigration statuses – showed solidarity for one another:

I have some friends that I hang with. And a couple of them – like two orthree – don’t have papers. One of them got picked up by the patrol officersand they took him to T.J. So some of my friends, all the ones that could go,went down to T.J. and took money and this and that over to him. Theymade sure he had everything – that he was in a nice hotel and had food andall. And then later, the day after, they themselves crossed him. So theycrossed and they’re just speaking English, all of them. Nobody took IDs,nobody took nothing. So the [immigration officials] asked them, and theywere like, “Oh, we’re citizens.” So a bunch of teenagers went over to T.J.and crossed him back.

In this situation, Isabel’s friends challenged the US state’s determination thattheir friend did not belong in the United States by deploying a US citizen identitythrough speaking English and acting “American”; they were ultimately able tocross by convincingly performing US citizenship. Other scholars have documen-ted similar “border security performances” (Bejarano, 2010, 395) deployed byborderland youth by tapping into the language and clothing styles of US-bornLatinos (Rosas, 2006b).

Beyond these accounts of resistance, I also saw the teens’ responses in action.During my fieldwork, I accompanied two different groups of teens to a remotepark that abuts the border fence. As a group of us approached the park for acommunity service project, we saw three Border Patrol agents atop ATV vehicles.Fifteen-year-old Nancy jokingly said, “Aw, la migra. I don’t have my papers.What are they gonna do to me?” Fifteen-year-old Tomás laughingly asked,“What do you think they’d do if I just started running through that open partthere? If they stopped me, I’d be like, ‘Hey, I’m a citizen – I was born here. Whyare you chasing after me?’ ” Their imagined reactions to the Border Patrol agentswere not ones of fear; instead, they played with the possibility that they may havea measure of power because of their position as legitimate US citizens. A fewmonths later, I accompanied sophomores Wilson andMarta as they took picturesin the park for the Photovoice project. They, too, joked about what wouldhappen if they hopped the border fence and ran the other way into Mexico inplain sight of the Border Patrol agents. As they were shooting their pictures,Marta, who is quite thin, attempted to squeeze through the part of the border wallconstructed of vertical metal slats, saying “I just wanted to see if I could cross thatway, too.”

In both of these examples, the teens’ joking made light of the seriousness ofcrossing the border and having/not having immigration papers. It highlighted theambiguity of their own sense of belonging – the realization they were “legitimate”even though it was entirely possible that the immigration officials would not



perceive them as being US citizens. These jokes were a way for them to assert theirbelonging – imaginatively correcting the officers for assuming that they did nothave the right to be in the United States. Secure in their immigration status, thesefour teens manipulated ideas about belonging in order to make a point, if only tothemselves. These burgeoning feelings of belonging also emerged quite clearly –

and forcefully – during this time period as second-generation youth throughoutCalifornia asserted their belonging in the immigrant rights protests of 2006(Bloemraad and Trost, 2008; Getrich, 2008). Indeed, children are proving to beactive agents of change within their borderland communities (Bosco, 2010).These expressions of agency also serve to underscore the fragility of the system ofpower in the borderlands (Rosas, 2006b).

Grappl ing With the Effects of the Expanding Racial izedEnforcement Regime

This article has documented how the US system of racialized immigrationenforcement is lived and comprehended by the US-born children of Mexicanimmigrants in San Diego. The teens are coming of age during a period of intensifiedborder control that they have experienced first-hand in various types of encountersthey have with state power. For some of them, these largely negative experiencesreinforce that their membership is not valued and that they are perceived as notbelonging in the United States, despite their own feelings and assertions to thecontrary. It is because the teens are told (verbally and otherwise) that they do notnecessarily belong in the same manner as everyone else that they come to feel likethey are not, as 14-year-old Nadia phrased it, “welcome” in the United States.

Immigration enforcement strategies may be nominally designed to preventunauthorized border crossers from entering the United States and to target themas they circulate throughout the United States. However, as the line betweenimmigrants and citizens is not clear – and indeed, never can be – the US-bornchildren of Mexican immigrants are subjected to the racialized system ofimmigration enforcement, even though technically they should be insulated fromsuch mistreatment. Immigration enforcement activities of the past two decadeshave taken a substantial human rights toll on undocumented immigrants as wellas “legal” immigrant and US citizen Latino residents of border communities(Dunn, 2010). As evidenced in this article, children are another social categorywhose rights are compromised in the context of border policing. Despitefrequently being portrayed as having ill-defined partial membership or semi-citizenship (Cohen, 2005, 221–222), it is clear that youth actively engage in socialstruggle and everyday practices of resistance (Rosas, 2006a, 341) in the border-lands – both for themselves and more broadly for their mixed-status immigrantfamilies (Getrich, 2008).

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As immigration enforcement laws are introduced and implemented at federal,state and local levels in the current anti-immigrant sociopolitical climate, we haveto consider the effects of these practices on local populations who may adverselybear the burden of them. Particularly given the implications for ethno-racialprofiling of legislation like SB 1070 and subsequent copycat bills, it is impor-tant to consider the effects of such acts of exclusion, as they are not withoutconsequence. Though immigration enforcement may purportedly monitor thelegal statuses of border crossers and local residents, it has been demonstrated thatthey really target ethno-racial characteristics, or Mexicanness, which representsan institutional pattern of structural violence (Goldsmith et al, 2009).

In particular, we need to make sure that US immigration and immigrantpolicies and practices do not unduly burden US citizen children, who arefrequently unintended and overlooked victims of aggressive immigration policiesand practices. For children in particular, the racialization of citizenship isparticularly dangerous as they are being sent the message that only “obvious”(that is, white) citizens truly belong in the United States. The internalization oftheir feelings of second-class citizenship has the potential to negatively affect theirsense of belonging and, ultimately, their ability to flourish and lead productivelives in the United States.

About the Author

Christina M. Getrich is a research scientist in the Department of Family andCommunity Medicine at the University of New Mexico, where she also receivedher PhD in Anthropology. Her research interests include immigrant familiesand second-generation youth, the effects of immigration policies and enforce-ment practices on local populations, immigrant health-care access and utiliza-tion, and ethnic/racial disparities in health care. She has published articlesin American Behavioral Scientist, American Journal of Public Health, SocialScience and Medicine, Journal of Community Health, and Qualitative HealthResearch.

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