Border Policing : A History of Enforcement and Evasion in North America

Figures 0.1 and 0.2. Maps of border crossings along the US-Canada border. Some bordercrossing locations slightly adjusted for greater clarity. Courtesy of Houston Mount. States.15 Conflict among the groups led each to find a champion, or "its representative fighting man," which for Anglos became embodied in the Texas Ranger.16 Thus, Webb unabashedly celebrated the Texas Rangers as champions of white supremacy and agents of Indian and Mexican subjugation. Webb's position as a professor at the University of Texas and for a time as president of the American Historical Association cemented his influence on the historiography of border policing, inspiring numerous academic followers and an enduring, if largely erroneous, impression on historical memory and popular culture.17 Scholars of color, however, challenged Webb's narrative. Beginning in 1958 with the publication of "With His Pistol in His Hand": A Border Ballad and Its Hero, Chicano professor Américo Paredes reexamined the Texas Rangers from the perspective of the policed. Rather than protectors, for ethnic Mexicans of the borderlands, the Texas Rangers were rinches, "armed and mounted and looking for Mexicans to kill."18 Considering Texas Rangers as just one weapon in the state's policing arsenal, ethnic Mexican victims applied the term rinche to violent state and state-aligned forces, from posses to the US Cavalry to the US Border Patrol.19 Mexican American scholars emerging from the Chicano movement of the 1970s picked up Paredes's critique of racist law enforcement, so much so that by the 1980s books like Gunpowder Justice: A Reassessment of the Texas Rangers and historians including Arnoldo De León, David Montejano, and others succeeded in not only countering the racist ethnocentrism inherent in the Webb school of border policing but also recovering the voices of those silenced by state violence.20 Chicano scholars' success in reclaiming victims' voices prompted historians to reexamine border policing from overlooked perspectives. In 1999, Linda Gordon's The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction examined a vigilante mob's removal of lawfully adopted immigrant Irish orphans from their Mexican American parents in 1904.21 In considering the motivations of the posse, Gordon examined racial construction as well as the role women played in prompting extralegal action. Gordon's book not only won numerous accolades, including the Bancroft Prize; her work in fact helped usher in a cadre of "new borderlands" historians. Calling for "transnational" examinations, new borderlands scholars' research in Mexican and US archives considered border policing binationally, thereby allowing them to shed new light on one-sided accounts.22 Books like Ben Johnson's Revolution in Texas, Samuel Truett's Fugitive Landscapes, and Rachel St. John's Line in the Sand looked critically at US efforts at border policing ## Toward a Connective Approach to Border Policing The authors in this volume work to place the increasingly parallel literature on border policing in North America into direct conversation. They each highlight the extent to which border policing simultaneously encompasses both broad transnational efforts at nation-building and localized forms of community regulation. While much of the borderlands literature June 21, 2018, washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-real-hoax-about-the-border-crisis /2018/06/21/5999c96e-7589-11e8-805c-4b67019fcfe4\_story.html?utm\_term=.f26b 426bc4a2. 13. On comparative approaches to the US-Canada and US-Mexico borders, see "This collection of original essays brings together a dozen pieces on the history of policing practices along both the southern and northern US borders. The two volume editors themselves have done work that represents the cutting edge of scholarship on the respective borders: Diaz in Border Contraband, and Karibo in Sin City North, her study of the Detroit-Windsor border region. The thematic reach of the book matches the geographic and chronological reach; as the editors put it, the project 'explores how particular legal codes and regulatory practices have attempted to define and delineate the parameters of the state; how citizenship is defined in both law and in practice, and how state regulatory apparatuses monitor and police flows of goods and people across international divides.' The project begins in the nineteenth century, with an examination of the policing of waterways during the War of 1812. Each subsequent chapter traces how contested jurisdictions and competing interests shaped the practice of border policing through the early 21st century. The collection considers critical historical moments and developments--including the Porfiriato and Mexican Revolution; the struggles over Indian sovereignty; the creation of immigration laws; Prohibition; the rise of transnational drug trafficking; and perception of borders in popular culture. In doing so, the volume examines the powerful ways that federal authorities impose political agendas on borderlands, and how local border residents and regions interact with--and at times push back against--such agendas. By blending political, legal, social, and cultural history, this collection provides new insight into the distinct realities that shaped the borders dividing the US, Canada, and Mexico"-- Provided by publisher An interdisciplinary group of borderlands scholars provide the first expansive comparative history of the way North American borders have been policed—and transgressed—over the past two centuries. An extensive history examining how North American nations have tried (and often failed) to police their borders, Border Policing presents diverse scholarly perspectives on attempts to regulate people and goods at borders, as well as on the ways that individuals and communities have navigated, contested, and evaded such regulation. The contributors explore these power dynamics though a series of case studies on subjects ranging from competing allegiances at the northeastern border during the War of 1812 to struggles over Indian sovereignty and from the effects of the Mexican Revolution to the experiences of smugglers along the Rio Grande during Prohibition. Later chapters stretch into the twenty-first century and consider immigration enforcement, drug trafficking, and representations of border policing in reality television. Together, the contributors explore the powerful ways in which federal authorities impose political agendas on borderlands and how local border residents and regions interact with, and push back against, such agendas. With its rich mix of political, legal, social, and cultural history, this collection provides new insights into the distinct realities that have shaped the international borders of North America. An extensive history examining how North American nations have tried (and often failed) to police their borders, Border Policing presents diverse scholarly perspectives on attempts to regulate people and goods at borders, as well as on the ways that individuals and communities have navigated, contested, and evaded such regulation.0The contributors explore these power dynamics though a series of case studies on subjects ranging from competing allegiances at the northeastern border during the War of 1812 to struggles over Indian sovereignty and from the effects of the Mexican Revolution to the experiences of smugglers along the Rio Grande during Prohibition. Later chapters stretch into the twenty-first century and consider immigration enforcement, drug trafficking, and representations of border policing in reality television. Together, the contributors explore the powerful ways in which federal authorities impose political agendas on borderlands and how local border residents and regions interact with, and push back against, such agendas. With its rich mix of political, legal, social, and cultural history, this collection provides new insights into the distinct realities that have shaped the international borders of North America