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The Borders of America

Migration, Control, and Resistance Across Latin America and the Caribbean

Cover of The Borders of America features a red tinted photograph taken from ground level of people walking from behind with light shining through. Layered over the feet of one individual on the left is a red and yellow gradient that the title appears Read the Introduction

Book

Pages: 400

Illustrations: 7 illustrations

Published: February 2026

Editors: Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Nicholas De Genova, Gustavo Dias, Eduardo Domenech

Contributors: Tanya Basok, Janneth Clavijo, Roberto Dufraix-Tapia, Jonathan Echeverri Zuluaga, Valentina Glockner Fagetti, Luin Goldring, Patricia Landolt, Carolina Moulin, Margarita Luz Núñez Chaim, Juan Thomas Ordóñez, Daniel Quinteros, Romina Ramos, Martha Rojas-Wiesner, Fabio Santos, Amarela Varela-Huerta, Laura Velasco Ortiz

The Borders of America examines the tension between human migration and the diverse formations of border control and immigration and asylum policy that have arisen across the Americas since the start of the twenty-first century. The collection develops a single analytical framework that is hemispheric in scope, encompassing the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and the full extent of Latin America. The contributors offer the concept of a “border regime” as an epistemological and methodological approach that comprehends borders not merely as physical demarcations between state territories and jurisdictions but rather as expansive, uneven, and heterogeneous spaces of constant encounter, exchange, dispute, tension, conflict, and contestation. Presenting detailed empirical research into contemporary intra-regional and transcontinental mobilities across the hemisphere, The Borders of America scrutinizes an array of critical nodes in the larger configuration of the trans-American border regime.

Contributors. Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Tanya Basok, Janneth Clavijo, Nicholas De Genova, Gustavo Dias, Eduardo Domenech, Roberto Dufraix-Tapia, Jonathan Echeverri Zuluaga, Valentina Glockner Fagetti, Luin Goldring, Patricia Landolt, Carolina Moulin, Margarita Luz Núñez Chaim, Juan Ordóñez, Daniel Quinteros, Romina Ramos, Martha Rojas-Wiesner, Fabio Santos, Amarela Varela-Huerta, and Laura Velasco Ortiz

Praise

“The Borders of America stares past the icy violence of border enforcement to reveal how migrants traverse and live beyond America’s manifold boundaries. With hemispheric sweep from Canada through Latin America, this collection shows how migrant mobilities shape border regimes, creating conflicted political spaces where power and authority are always at stake. The volume’s crucial insight: no border stands alone—America’s borders enact and configure a wider global architecture of movement, resistance, and control.” - Brett Neilson, coauthor of The Politics of Operations: Excavating Contemporary Capitalism

"This insightful collection is conceptually sharp and geographically ambitious, exploring broad migration patterns and policing trends while shifting attention to the lives of people working in and migrating across the Americas. Authors based throughout the region critically engage with colonial histories and imperial geographies that wend their way through border externalization."  - Alison Mountz, Professor of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto

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Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Additional Information

Author/Editor Bios

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Soledad Álvarez Velasco is Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies and Anthropology at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Nicholas De Genova is Professor of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Houston.

Gustavo Dias is Professor of Sociology at the State University of Montes Claros, Brazil.

Eduardo Domenech is Research Professor at the National University of Cordoba and the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Argentina.

Table Of Contents

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Introduction. The Borders of (Our) America / Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Nicholas De Genova, Eduardo Domenech, and Gustavo Dias  1
1. Latin American Refugeeships in Canada and the Hemispheric Border Regime / Patricia Landolt and Luin Goldring  33
2. Mobility Control Regime and Clandestine Practices in the US-Mexico Border / Laura Velasco Ortiz  61
3. Subverting International Bordering Practices: “Illegal Legality” in Southern Mexico / Tanya Basok and Martha Luz Rojas Wiesner  89
4. Migrant Caravans and the Border Control Regime in Mexico: The Case of the Fifty-Day Caravan During the COVID Pandemic / Margarita Núñez Chaim, Amarela Varela Huerta, and Valentina Glockner Fagetti  117
5. The Indeterminacy of Transit Through Latin America as Seen from the Colombia-Panama Border / Juan Thomas Oróñez and Jonathan Echeverri Zuluaga  143
6. Illegalized in the Country of “Universal Citizenship” / Soledad Ávarez Velasco  165
7. Border Control, COVID-19, and the Criminalization of Irregularized Migration in Chile / Daniel Quinteros, Romina Ramos, and Roberto Dufraix-Tapia  191
8. The Politics of Hostility in Argentina: Detention, Expulsion, and Border Rejection / Eduardo Domenech  221
9. Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing: Transformation of Refuge Through the Protection-Control Relationship in the South American Space / Janneth Clavijo  249
10. Logistical Lives, Humanitarian Borders: Managing Populations in South-South Circulations / Carolina Moulin  277
11. “Europe" in ”Latin America": Illegalized Mobilities, Deportable Bodies, and Contested Sovereignties in the French-Brazilian Borderland / Fabio Santos  301
12. The Trans-American Border Regime: Toward a Genealogy / Nicholas De Genova, Soledad Álvarez Velasco, Eduardo Domenech, and Gustavo Dias  329
Contributors  369
Index  375

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Additional Information

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Paper ISBN: 978-1-4780-3306-6 / Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4780-2962-5 / eISBN: 978-1-4780-6180-9 / DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478061809