Politics of the Shelter

Jack Herrera

When Joe Biden’s motorcade departed the Brownsville airport on March 1, it hung a right, taking one route to a Border Patrol station on the Texas town’s northwestern outskirts. If, instead, the SUVs had turned left, setting out on a different route to the station, they would have passed directly by the Ozanam Center, a migrant shelter. That day, I met Durglannis Garrido in the center’s courtyard, where she stood...

A Failure of Imagination | On Borders and the Nation-State

Jack Herrera

In 1990, there were fifteen international border walls, according to the political geographer Reece Jones. Today, that figure has more than quintupled — and it doesn’t account for the vast surveillance apparatuses that track and criminalize migration even in the absence of brick-and-mortar (and chain-link, and steel) barriers. By 2025, the global border-security market is expected to generate more than $65 billion in revenue.  These structures and systems haven’t stopped...