Blockading the Border and Human Rights: The El Paso Operation That Remade Immigration Enforcement

Front Matter

Blockading the Border and Human Rights Inter-America Series Edited by Howard Campbell, Duncan Earle, and John Peterson In the new “Inter-American” epoch to come, our borderland zones may expand well past the confines of geopolitical lines. Social knowledge of these dynamic interfaces offers rich insights into the pressing and complex issues that affect both the borderlands and beyond. The Inter-America Series comprises a wide interdisciplinary range of cutting-edge books that explicitly or implicitly enlist border issues to discuss larger concepts, perspectives, and theories from the “borderland” vantage and will be appropriate for the classroom, the library, and the wider reading public. Blockading the Border and Human Rights The El Paso Operation That Remade Immigration Enforcement timothy j. dunn University of Texas Press Austin Copyright © 2009 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2009 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/bpermission.html The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r1997) (Permanence of Paper). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dunn, Timothy J., 1961– Blockading the border and human rights : the El Paso operation that remade immigration enforcement / Timothy J. Dunn. — 1st ed. p. cm.—(Inter-America series) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-292-71901-9 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. El Paso (Tex.)—Emigration and immigration. 2. El Paso (Tex.)— Emigration and immigration—Government policy. 3. El Paso (Tex.)— Emigration and immigration—Social aspects. 4. Mexico—Emigration and immigration—Social aspects. 5. United States. Immigration Border Patrol. I. Title. II. Series jv7100.e57d86 2009 325.764′96—dc22 2008033294 A version of Chapter 4 appeared previously in Pablo Vila, ed., Ethnography at the Border (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003). To Amy Liebman, and our sons Benjamin and Gabriel. To my father, Robert “Olie” Dunn, and in memory of my mother, Jo Ann Foster Dunn. And to all those working to make a better world, with justice and dignity for all. THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ...