It's Time to Retire the Term “Border Security”
Not only is it a lie, it also prevents us from imagining an alternative for a better world for all people
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I first want to thank my longtime friend and mentor Joseph Nevins, geographer and author of two great border books Operation Gatekeeper and Beyond and Dying to Live, for giving me feedback and invaluable insight for the following op ed, our first. Please feel free to repost this (and all of our work) widely, we only ask that you credit and link to The Border Chronicle for attribution. We hope to get our reporting and analysis around as much as possible! Also, in case you missed it, Melissa had a brilliant interview with police expert Eric Gamino on our podcast Tuesday. Please do listen if you are curious about, say, “Operation Netflix” and what that has to do with the border.
A quick note to stay tuned for a new discussion thread coming next Tuesday, March 1, beginning at 9 a.m. (MST). Look for the email in your inbox. We’ll answer any questions you might have from 10:00 a.m. to noon, and leave the thread open all day for your comments, suggestions, then circle back in the afternoon to answer more questions. We are very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts on how we’ve been doing and what you’d like to see The Border Chronicle cover in the future. Thank you for your support and hasta pronto!
It’s Time to Retire the Term “Border Security”
Not only is it a lie, it also prevents us from imagining an alternative for a better world for all people
On February 12 and 13, the media outlet NewsNation asked 1,037 people the following question in a poll: Should the U.S. government’s “spending on border security to prevent illegal immigration increase, decrease, or stay the same?” The results were for the border hawks: 48 percent said they wanted an increase, while 20 percent wanted a decrease. The conclusion? A “plurality of Americans” want “increased funding for security at the U.S.’s southern border.”
I was surprised by the decisive margin but wondered if the term “border security” skewed the result. In fact, that confusing term should not have been in the question. The concept of border security not only hinders any real understanding about the border and border policy, but also any real discussion. Even worse, it prevents us from imagining any sort of alternative or potential for a better world for all people.
Unlike some of its more overtly racist counterparts, the descriptor “border security” has long formed part of the national lexicon as a benign cliché. Try googling “I am for border security” and you get an array of people with different political ideologies repeating this mantra. The same people would probably not say, “I’m for maiming and imprisoning people,” with the same confidence. But this is the effectiveness of a cliché, or what the Oxford dictionary describes as a phrase that is “overused and betrays a lack of original thought.”
In the case of “border security,” I would take it a step further and highlight the lack of critical thought. For one, the term is inaccurate. Border security is designed to make things as difficult, dangerous, and insecure for people on purpose. Creating insecurity has long been a part of the border deterrence strategy. This year’s re-implementation of “Remain in Mexico,” that forces people (often families) to wait in Mexico often for months for an asylum hearing, is the latest example of how border security creates vulnerability, precarity, and insecurity.
In what world would “security” describe this? An inverted one, as Eduardo Galeano describes it in his book, Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World. Through Galeano’s looking glass of opposites, the border is a place where people who are secure (generally on the U.S. side) are told they are under threat, and the people who are insecure (who have already lost their homes, their livelihoods, or are fleeing for their lives) are made even more so because they are presented as threats.
If you think “security” is meant for border residents, not border crossers, then let’s consider the experiences of people who live on the Tohono O’odham Nation, which shares 70 miles of border with Mexico but whose ancestral land extends deep into that country. In the years of reporting I’ve done on the Nation, I have heard many stories of Border Patrol tailing residents at high speeds, pulling them over for no apparent reason, pulling them out of their vehicles, using pepper spray and billy clubs (and sometimes guns), and invading homes. Residents talk about “checkpoint trauma” since there is a Homeland Security checkpoint on every paved road off the perimeter of the reservation.
Because of such experiences, you will rarely hear stories from Tohono O’odham of feeling secure. Similarly, one rarely hears stories of security from people of color outside the reservation, who U.S. authorities constantly racially profile.
And if you think border security is for residents who are not brown or black or indigenous, then we can also go ask people in the unincorporated (and mainly white) town of Arivaca. In 2013, nearly half the population signed a petition demanding that the Border Patrol remove its checkpoints.
In addition to its inaccuracy, the word “security” is analytically unsound. Who is going to say they oppose “security”? Nobody. Or nobody in any sort of official position. No politician would say it, no policy maker, no editorial page. Sealed in protective gear, the concept becomes difficult to challenge and is rarely questioned. There is a value system entrenched in its very syllables, one that evokes quick head nods from Democrats and Republicans alike, as if security were mixed up with well-being.
Even if you think it is necessary to stop illicit drugs, the “border security” frame obscures key aspects of the drug trade: the high percentage of drugs that come through legal ports of entry, and U.S. banks that play a key role in laundering drug money. Moreover, “security” does not allow us to think about the role of U.S. demand for drugs, nor provides insight into why people in poor regions smuggle drugs to begin with.
The core assumption of the security framing is that the borderlands are intrinsically unsafe. This assumption bolsters right-wing narratives of border chaos, and it creates fertile ground in which such narratives can thrive. The term is an analytical border wall.
I am certain that the results of the NewsNation poll would have been different if people knew that $350 billion has been spent on border and immigration enforcement since the inception of DHS in 2003, or that it is lucrative and more than 100,000 contracts have been issued to private companies since 2008, or that thousands of people have died, tens of thousands imprisoned and deported, or that thousands of families have been separated because of constant increases in “border security” now over decades.
But for the public to understand these realities, we have to remove the “upside down” looking glass and put “border security” to rest. Trust me, discussions about the border will become much more fruitful, including the potential to imagine alternatives for creating a better world, free of insecurity, for all.
I wish I had The Border Chronicle when I was teaching at Berkeley. I used to assign mostly journalism on the Tohono O'odham border, and students often challenged the veracity of it! They could not believe such a place existed in this country. It was one of the best eye-opener units I had (the other was the Sand Creek Massacre). A great critical thinking exercise. Side note: Students from Eastern Europe grasped the border situation pretty easily!
As a snowbird from Virginia to Southern Arizona each winter, I see how little people in Virginia understand about our southern border (or, for that matter, our immigration history and laws). Unless people come to see for themselves or have contact with those of us who live here AND spend the time to learn more about what's happening at the southern border, they can only watch the news and listen to politicians who promote misinformation and fear.