From the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty to the Secure Fence Act. Border United States-Mexico control politics

di Matteo Pretelli
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 39 (2012), p. 123

This essay aims to analyze U.S. policies of southern border enforcement in the 19th- and 20th-centuries, which targeted illegal crossings from Mexico onto American soil. In 2006, President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act that endorsed the costruction of a fence along 700 of the 2,000 mile long southern international boundary. This border enforcement is the aftermath of policies that – especially from the 1980s onwards – aim to respond to the increasing fear in U.S. public opinion relating to the presence of unauthorized migrants in the United States. Key words: United States, Mexico, mexican-americans; fence; border, clandestinity