“Where People Come to Press Close to the Other Side”: Religion, Politics, and the American Border

In January 2020, I visited the US-Mexico border as a part of a group trip to northern Sonora with Border Community Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Tubac, Arizona.¹ We crossed into Mexico at Nogales, a city bisected by the border and often called “Ambos Nogales” (“Both Nogales”) for that reason. While at the border I was struck by a sense of inevitability and banality; the relaxed posture of a US border official on his bike at Morley Gate (Figure 1) speaks to this feeling.

Contributing to this laid-back atmosphere was the fact that my traveling companion, a fellow US citizen, and I were able to cross back and forth at will between the US and Mexico, as if passing through a metro station. At the end of our trip to Sonora, after crossing over to the US to check into our hotel, we decided to go back to Mexico for happy hour at La Roca, a bar nestled into a picturesque cliff face just steps from the border. A century ago, Mexican Nogales was a boomtown and haven for US Americans seeking to escape Prohibition. It is said that at least one binational bar let US patrons drink as long as they stood on the Mexican side of the room. The border was largely irrelevant for those on both sides until the 1950s.

Figure 1.

Photo taken by the author.

Today that is not the case. At the Morley Gate crossing, while searching for the nineteenth-century border markers on the Mexican side of the wall, we noticed two people who, presumably, lacked permission to enter the United States. They were gazing through the border fence onto International Boulevard at the southern end of Nogales, Arizona (Figure 2). We wondered what they were doing. Waiting for someone? Just watching? Journalist and poet Amelia Urry observed that, “Nogales is a place where people come to press close to the other side.”² The border was very much present for them.

There were other signs of its presence. Within sight of the unimposing Morley Gate crossing sits Nogales Tactical. It sets a different tone. A block from the border,

Figure 2.

Photo taken by the author.

Nogales Tactical sells tactical gear and accessories for actual and aspiring border enforcers. The sign and window display leave little doubt as to what is for sale (combat gear) and who the intended customers are (white American men). Their website reads: “Nogales Tactical is proud to serve the men and women of public safety and homeland security. Nogales Tactical specializes in tactical accessories, uniforms, and boots for Customs and Border Patrol, Local Police Departments, EMS, Firefighters, Military and Security. Custom fitting, alterations, tailoring and embroidery are available. Make sure to visit our store or call us for all your tactical needs.”³ My friend hesitated when I suggested we go inside to have a look, but we went. The store was huge. The sense of a no-holds-barred, heavily militarized defense of the border, of the United States, and of whiteness, was palpable, unpleasant, and, at times, frightening. We didn’t stay long.

Most US Americans think the border should be secured and defended. The border, according to this consensus, is somewhat inevitable. Good fences make good neighbors. Big walls make better neighbors. It is not only Trump and his supporters who support a fortified border. US annual budgets for immigration and border enforcement have grown almost eighty-fold since 1978, totaling about 23 billion dollars in Fiscal Year 2021.⁴ As of 2016, the US was spending more on border and immigration enforcement than on all other federal law-enforcement agencies combined.⁵ The border is not only a line in the sand or a wall but also a web of heavily militarized and often racialized, US-overseen enforcement regimes that blanket the world.⁶ This was palpable at Nogales Tactical and in the CBP advertisements posted...